Fish Tales
by Tactition101
Summary: Some people get sent to the Naruto universe when they're reborn, others the Fire Emblem one. Me, I somehow wound up becoming the owner of an ocean side property and the dubious honor of knowing that I have a certain red head pining over me even though I was quite happy being single before. Note: this is slightly AU with a more serious Ariel, don't like, don't read.


Fish Tales

Summary: Some people get sent to the Naruto universe when they're reborn, others the Fire Emblem one. Me, I somehow wound up becoming the owner of an ocean side property and the dubious honor of knowing that I have a certain red head pining over me even though I was quite happy being single before. Note: this is slightly AU with a more serious Ariel, don't like, don't read.

Prologue: Ten Years Before the Events of TLM

I fiddled with the small flute that I was learning how to play while my parents traded incredulous looks with each other. Standing respectively off to the side was the man who was assigned to be my manservant (a term which still weirded me out to this day). Grimsby widened his own eyes before they narrowed as he reevaluated everything he had known about me. Not that I could blame them considering I had just told my parents and him that I had been born during the tail end of the twentieth century and so had a rough idea of what was going to be happening in this world in a decade or two thanks to all of the stories I had seen by way of Disney and Pixar films.

And yes, I fully believed that this planet I was on held all of the countries for most of the 'princess' films and a few others of the Disney franchise considering there had been no evidence in my first life stating that the others had been from different worlds. Hell, Belle and Aurora were stated in 'canon' to be French along with Esmerelda, Mulan as Chinese, Tiana as American, and Merida was clearly of Scottish highlander descent even if you only went by her accent alone so it made even more sense than before that this was simply a parallel Earth with the same geography but more rules in the fantasy area. This coupled with the Rise of the Guardians being focused on an American town was pretty darn convincing. Oh sure Rapunzel and the Frozen sisters had countries that I wasn't all too sure actually existed at some point or another in my old world but that didn't mean they weren't part of the European continent anyway, especially since one video I had watched back in my old world made a remarkably good case of them being in Germany and Norway respectively.

My father suddenly chuckled bringing me out of my thoughts and said "Well, I suppose this explains how you came up with that crazy monstrosity you call a steam engine that powers the Cliffside Harbor lift you helped install last month."

I snorted as I said "Oh believe me father, If I didn't think it'd completely throw the workings of this world completely out of whack as all of the countries tried to outdo one another, we'd probably be already flying in heavier than air vehicles by now and using boats made out of steel rather than wood that use engines instead of wind to move. I may not have been the smartest person back in my old world, but I know enough that I could still give the people in this one enough of a starting point to really kick start the technology we use."

"Considering what you have told us of these 'nuclear' weapons, that is probably a good thing." My mother said trying out the unfamiliar word before she shook her head and said "This world is currently experiencing an era of relative peace. An arms race to have such inventions could shatter that peace and bring about ruin. As you have said, the people of this Earth are not ready for that kind of power, and as with your old world, they may never be."

"That plus the industrialization that would be a side effect of said race could destabilize the natural balance of this world's magics. After all, as far as you know, your old world did not have any magic to speak of so the effects were unknown. I for one though am not tempted to find out one way or the other." My father said in agreement even as his lips twitched upwards and he continued "I'm rather fond of my depth and land finder spells after all."

That had been a shock, learning that my father could use a limited amount of magic. He wouldn't be throwing any fireballs anytime soon but he was rather good with a navigation spell or two that were a serious help for him since as a country that was one collective peninsula that you could ride a horse across widthwise within two days at a nonstop hard gallop we royals were expected to be just as good sea goers as the next sea captain. I myself unfortunately didn't have a single magic bone in my entire body, probably a result from having first lived in an industrialized world before. That hadn't stopped me from diving head first into all of the magic books in the castle's library and stocking up on various potions though. Potions which surprisingly any five-year-old and their pet monkey could make if they followed the proper procedures and actually had access to the materials and know how. After all, this world may be extremely like a bunch of children's movies in how it was run but there had still been some seriously dangerous magics in said films. (Maleficent and her Dragon form just to give an example.) Runes were also fairly easy to use if you didn't have magic so long as you had someone who could power up a battery rune for you so that you could actually activate your finished products. At least until the very many absolutely NONMAGICAL ways of powering said runes could come into effect at least. Runes in this world were as versatile as Seals in Naruto Fanfiction stories after all. If you could figure out the right combination, you could probably build a rune powered rocket tube that would go from the earth to the moon in an hour and then proceed to build a fully functional moon base within twenty-four hours. Yeah, they really were that badass.

Grimsby was taking all of this in before he suddenly chuckled drawing me out of my thoughts. Seeing us turning our heads towards him in curiosity, he said "I have just realized that we will not have to truly worry about the continuation of our country's royal line considering what young Eric has said about the 'movies' that dealt with our country." Growing serious, he continued "We'll have to be rather careful when we are out to sea on his eighteenth birthday though."

I blinked at that before I said "Pardon me for my language here, but not only no, but HELL no! Disregarding the fact that I was rather happy being single in my previous life since as the only child of royalty I will be needing an heir of my own someday, I don't intend on nearly dying just to drop off some statue of me for a mermaid princess to pine over. Come my eighteenth birthday I fully intend to stay on terra firma, thank you very much."

"I must say that I am of the same mind as Eric." My mother said even as she looked like she wanted to scold me for my language. Continuing on, she said "Even if these films had showed that he was saved by this mermaid princess that does not guarantee the safety of both him and the rest of the crew onboard that vessel when the time comes. Catalyst of bringing the potential new queen of this country to the surface or not, risking the lives of not only this country's prince but also the members of that ship when we have been forewarned of its possible destruction is not only reckless, but morally and ethically unjust."

"Agreed, Eric will be remaining ashore during his eighteenth birthday. We will simply have to deal with the consequences of that when the time comes." My father said before he stood and said "But for now it is approaching noon and we have been given a lot to think about. We shall obtain lunch and then come back to the matter of what to do with our foreknowledge of events that will soon occur outside of our borders."

My mother and I joined him in standing up and we all proceeded to leave my father's study and left for the dining room. As we left, I felt the weight of my knowledge lighten over my shoulders. I had told my parents about what I knew and the responsibility of what to do with that knowledge was now in a lot more experienced hands. It was just too bad there was never any mention of how they died in the films that I remembered since I was not looking forward to taking over the kingdom when they died.

Time Skip Two Years Later (Ten Years Old)

I had a plan that if worked, would have had me be the undisputed God of power generation and distribution back in my home world if magic actually existed there. The plan involved a crap ton of rune research that was only now ready to be tested small scale after four years of research. The plan, if it worked (and really, the only problem it would most likely face was getting all of the materials together and ready in a timely manner) would completely remove the need for fossil fuels to generate power in the coming decades and would make even the mere suggestion of using nuclear plants for power in the more distant future the most hilarious joke told by man. What was this highly ambitious and _maybe_ a touch insane plan you ask?

Well remember how I had mentioned that you could power runes in manners that were non-magic so long as there was just enough magic sent to them to start the process? Well those methods included but were most certainly not limited to: Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Geo_kinetic_, _Pressure_, Heat, Magnetism, Centrifugal force, Electricity, _Bio_electricity, and the last off the top of my head freaking **Souls**. Yeah, you could actually power these buggers with your own soul if you were crazy enough (Or, if your arch enemy _really_ pissed you off, his or hers as one final 'SCREW YOU!'). My idea would combine seven of those methods into one system which would in the end be able to (hypothetically mind you considering what era we were in) power Manhattan for a good fifty years after only _one_ year of being in operation. You'll excuse me if I let out an evil cackle for a moment right?

Any who, back to my small-scale test, I was currently standing in front of a ten-foot-long by five-foot-wide by ten-foot-deep glass case that held twenty five percent gravel and seventy five percent water. Inside the water was a collection of hinge wooden rods that flexed every time I created a wave. On the gravel was a model windmill that was positioned under direct sunlight provided by a window and was spinning in the wind provided by Grimsby who was cranking the handle of another rotary fan at varying speeds to simulate wind currents. Buried almost to the very bottom of the glass container under the gravel and two small but (thanks to weight runes) absolutely ridiculously heavy twenty-five-pound glass paper weights was a square rune tablet.

Held in my own hands was a wood bordered sheet of glass that was ten inches wide by seventeen and a half inches long with weightless and impervious runes on its back along with a whole lot of other very tiny runes that were made thanks to temporary use of an enlargement rune which gave anyone who wasn't familiar with computer programing migraines just trying to figure out what the hell they did. Yeah that's right, I had made my own computer tablet out of runes, bask in my greatness mortals. (Muhahahaha) Well, computer might be a bit generous since its primary function was to scan all runes in its rather considerable search radius (The entire planet and possibly the one on either side of it if their orbits are just right by the way) and be able to bring up their status and even control them if need be. It'd be a long time until a World Wide Web could come about though so for now my 'Rune Tablet' was more of remote control than a multipurpose tool of cyber play and business.

Didn't change the fact that I was grinning like a loon as I read the display it was showing though. Turning to Grimsby with a rather satisfied air around me, I said "All of the energy collection runes are showing expected figures. I think this might actually work when we go to full scale."

Grimsby had a massive grin of his own as he said "The implications of such are truly massive if that is true My Prince. Having energy drawn from multiple resources which don't negatively affect the region but can still provide light and heat for anywhere that has the proper runes will likely mean that very few countries will look to fossil fuels for energy consumption in the coming decades. And that is not including all the other tasks Runes can provide."

I nodded and said "Yeah, it'll be great not having to worry about a bunch of factories popping up worldwide pumping out pollutants just to mass produce metal and the sooner we can get clean energy up and running the sooner we can forget the need to drill or hunt whales for oil which can be some seriously nasty stuff if not handled right." I frowned and said "It's really a good thing that I was brought into this world around this time period, there'd be hell to pay from the power companies if I had showed up when they were already entrenched like they were in my old world."

"Not to mention the unemployment rate would skyrocket which would probably cause quite a few riots." Grimsby said with his own agreeing nod. I allowed myself to mentally beam at him as he spoke about things that weren't even a properly quantifiable statistic in this world. He'd taken everything I had said about my old world like a duck to water which proved that he was just as sharp a tack as he was wise. And he didn't bother with flowery words when it was just us and my parents in the room which was a big relief for me considering I wasn't anywhere near nobility in my past life.

I gave the small-scale model a considering look for a few minutes before I took a deep breath and said "We have theory and small-scale practical together, now comes the hard part of convincing not only mom and dad this should be done but also their advisors."

Grimsby nodded and said "Should be interesting if nothing else."

Time Skip: The Next Day

Me and Grimsby were in the throne room where my mother and father were sitting in their chairs and their advisors were sitting in chairs in front and to the side of the steps leading to their thrones. I had two black boards set behind me one of which was already filled with diagrams as I began my sales pitch.

"First of all, I'd like to thank you for agreeing to hear me out on such short notice everyone. I know you all have busy schedules that can't be easy to work around." I took a deep breath preparing myself for a rather long explanation and plowed on ahead as I continued "This world is rapidly approaching a time where we will require the ability to generate energy to maintain a status quota of living. Right now we are currently making due with simply having the wind push our ships around the world's oceans and whaling ships providing oil for our light sources. But as I have shown with the steam engine I designed for the Cliffside Harbor two years ago, new inventions will soon be appearing worldwide that could potentially mess up the delicate balance this world has as people look for fuels that can power their shiny new toys. I have come up with a way for us to avoid tipping that very fine balance before it begins to become a problem."

Turning to the blank board, I wrote Sea Air Land Power Generation Systems and under that SEAL POGS speaking as I wrote, I continued "The solution I have come up with is called Sea Air Land Power Generation Systems or SEAL POGS for short. It is a system that uses runes to draw energy from eight sources that requires no human interaction except for setup to maintain its energy collection." Moving to the other board, I tapped the figure of a tripod on a cliff side with the front two legs facing towards the cliff edge and a fourth nonstructural support leg went down from the very center of the point of the tripod into the ground. On top of the tripod was a platform that held a windmill turbine and a housing unit around its base but seemingly no way for the windmill's movements to turn anything. Seeing all eyes on the drawing and confusion at the fact there were seemingly nothing to transfer movement from the windmill turbines, I said "This tripod is the central part of the SEAL POGS. The turbines collect energy from the wind along with their own movement while a collection of energy collection runes on the top of the housing collect solar energy. Finally, there will be a rune set that will draw lightning from storms to it and convert it to energy we can use. The energy collected from these four sets of collection runes is sent down to the transfer rune which will be at the base of the nonsupport leg which will also be collecting energy that is collected from the other two stations."

I tapped the drawing of the sea that had a collection of hinged logs floating in a series of rows as I continued "The sea aspect is handled by a series of what I call hydrokinetic energy absorption arrays that take the motions of the waves that pass them and turns it into energy which they send along with energy collected by their own solar and electricity collectors to the transfer rune. These arrays would be kept in place with a series of anchor runes that we would drop down to the bottom of the sea so that no matter how high or low the tide or how fierce a storm, they will still stay in place. In fact, the bigger the storm, the more power will be drawn from the ocean's movements and the same is true for the wind turbine and electric collection arrays."

Finally I tapped the drawing of a shaft cut into the ground with a stone tablet at the bottom as I said "The final part of the system is a stone tablet that has runes etched on it that collect energy from heat that comes from the magma of the earth, movement of the tectonic plate we're on which hopefully won't generate much energy since that would mean there was an earthquake somewhere but still has the potential to act as an early warning for such things, and finally a rune energy collection array that draws energy from the pressure of the ground pressing down on it from above. The shaft needed to place the tablet would be dug using a runic mechanism that will transfer the dirt touching it to a hopper above ground as it is lowered down to the same depth as how high the center of the turbine will be. Once we are at the right depth and the rune tablet is placed, the hopper will be opened from the bottom allowing the dirt to be easily poured back into its hole." I tapped the model of the excavator system I had designed for the explicit task of getting the rune tablet down deep enough to be of use.

Taking another breath, I tapped a diagram under the models that had two straight lines across the board and squiggle lines under the bottom line representing an ocean and said "I plan for there to be three stations for the relative near future with more stations added as our power requirements grow. They will be built in stages of size escalation with the first station's turbines only being about ten feet long, the second fifty feet long, and the third and final station a hundred feet." I drew the three turbines at those scales with the ten-foot turbine flanked by the fifty and hundred-foot turbines, and ocean and ground systems at equally sized scale.

Turning around to face my audience who was respectively saving their questions for when I was done, I said "Now, I know each of you are wondering where all of this energy is going and what are we even going to need it for." Turning back around, I begin drawing on the relatively clear board and said "The answer for the first is that the energy is going to be stored in a series of fifty magic batteries that can hold an unlimited amount of energy which will be housed in a secure building that will be approximately a hundred square feet."

I placed the chalk down and turned around again as I said "The second question is a little more complex to answer. The short answer is that at this exact point of time we really have no use for the system but that is only because we do not already have the infrastructure needed to take advantage of it yet. But in the near future the answer can easily be that we would use this system for anything and everything you can think of and some more besides. Runes are incredibly versatile things and the possibilities that come from their use are literally limitless. Still, I wouldn't have gathered you together without an example ready, Grimsby?"

Grimsby nodded and pulled a wheel cart out from behind the two boards. On it were four rune stones that were dormant and my rune tablet. Picking up the tablet, I said "The four runes you see here are a light rune, a heat rune, a wind rune, and a cold rune. Each one of these is linked with the battery that is even now being charged by our small-scale model. I'll demonstrate each before I explain what we can expect the bigger ones to run. First is the light rune, which as the name suggests provides light."

I slid my thumb slowly over the surface of the tablet and the rune began to softly glow which increased as my finger slid until it was at the same brightness as a 100 w fluorescent light bulb. I held that brightness for a twenty second count before I set it down to 20 watts. Gesturing to it, I said "Imagine never needing a fire to light your way again and only being necessary for ambience. If Project SEAL POGS is approved, I plan to have the palace and all government buildings equipped with light runes within a year. Hopefully we could have the whole country equipped with them within half a year after. We'd also be able to equip heat and cool runes at the same time which would help us regulate inside temperatures without building a fire or opening windows." I activated both of the said runes and handed them to the advisors who held the runes for a few moments before passing them on. When I had them back, I set them down on the cart leaving them on before I picked up the wind rune and activated it causing my hair to gently float around as I said "Finally we have the wind rune which could come in handy on a ship, allowing propulsion even when the natural wind dies down."

Placing the tablet back with the others, I said "If I don't turn these off they could run forever so long as the small system I built remains running. And I do mean forever and not just a couple thousands of years. But if the full scale systems are approved, we'll be able to do a lot more than just run four runes for all time."

I placed my hands behind my back as I said "Now then what we can expect to use the large scale systems is a lot more than just light and heating and cooling systems. As I have said before the possibilities are quite endless but this is what I have come up with so far. Let's start off with better communication lines. With SEAL POGS operational, we would be able to have communications with anywhere from the next building over to our farthest reaching ships instantaneously. No more needing to wait for the postman to deliver our letters or waiting for months for loved ones to return from a voyage to sea to know that they are alright. Just connect with the right ship and you can have an actual conversation with the person on board. Then there's the possibility of setting up teleportation runes which would allow supplies to be sent to those ships or even change out members of the crew if they get too sick to remain on board or are injured to the point they need surgery on stable ground.

"Also, we can better protect our ships against sinking with runes. For instance, what if it was possible to keep the ship floating on its water line even if its hull is punctured? The right runes going around the entire boat at its waterline could see it staying afloat even if all of the decks below the surface are flooded. We can also put propulsion runes underneath the water line that we can activate if the ship ever enters a dead zone or use wind runes to achieve the same effect. And we wouldn't even need to connect these runes to the batteries on shore since the SEAL POGS can easily be modified to provide a ship with its own power just by being at sea with the ocean and windmill systems. In fact, the electric gathering function would prevent lightning from hitting the ship except for where they are placed preventing a storm from causing it to catch fire and it would be quite easy to put in a shield that would prevent water from coming in over the top and just about as easily to create a shield that would dampen wind speeds in a certain area.

"Next is the fact that we can use runes to provide clean water for everyone, either via filter runes that filters preexistent water or moisture condensation runes that draw moisture out of the air. We could have plumbing and irrigation runes provide water for our plants whenever they are needed without having to rely on it raining enough for plants to grow which would mean that we would never have to worry if our country experiences a drought. And let's not forget that heating or cooling runes could be used to draw our baths without us having to heat the water over a fire first.

"Then we have food storage options. We could have cold boxes that could keep food at just the right temperature so that way we don't have to use preservation methods like smoking. Or if we really want to extend something's shelf life, use stasis runes so that the object placed in storage remains as pristine as the day you put it in until the stasis runes no longer have power. Also, we can use runes to heat our food so that way we no longer have to use fire based ovens for cooking.

I began to pace as I said "These are all things that can be achieved well within a year of the first station being brought online if we build their infrastructure in stages, the Middle Picture if you would. The big picture is much more expansive and if done right, could see the entire world running off of SEAL POGS with us leading the way. First off, once we have the first three stations up and running, we'll have enough power to begin making heavier than air flight craft a feasible thing within the next two decades." I grinned as I saw everyone but Grimsby's wide eyes and continued "With air craft that aren't hot air balloons or gliders at our beck and call, we'll be able to reach places a lot faster than by land or sea. At the moment, I intend for the first aircraft to be rescue oriented meaning that if a ship was ever for any reason in danger even with their runic protections or there was a natural disaster on land then we would have a rapid response to send aid. Moving along that line of thought, it is not unfeasible to believe that sometime well within this century we could have people on the moon so long as we take proper precautions in building air tight vessels." Most of the room's occupants' jaws dropped a little at imagining people on the moon. I gave them a grin as I said "Now imagine if we could send runed tablets up into the heavens above us where they would maintain an orbit around the Earth so that way we could have real time images of anywhere on the planet. We could predict weather patterns as well as track vessels whether they move through the air, sea, or on land in real time. And that's not even counting how helpful it would be in the creation of accurate maps. If we make the runic sensors strong enough, they could potentially even see down to the deepest ocean trench which would help us avoid reefs and other obstacles hidden beneath the surface. And with a system of power generation in place that relies on energy sources that are naturally occurring regardless if they are being drawn on or not we would not require burning fossil fuels which could throw off the natural balance of this world's magic thus ensuring that barring an end of the world scenario, we will never lose access to magic. In conclusion, with SEAL POGS this country would quite literally be the most advanced out there within a couple of years and that could very well set the scene for the future decades, if not centuries."

My presentation finished, I stopped pacing and stood in front of the council at parade rest showing I was ready to answer any questions they had. After answering a few questions about the logistics needed to build the power systems me and Grimsby were asked to wait outside while my parents debated with their advisors about granting permission to begin making SEAL POGS a reality.

When we left the room, I leaned against the wall near the doors and said "Well, that went a lot better than I thought it would." Seeing Grimsby's raised eyebrow, I said "I didn't trip on my words once which was sometimes a problem whenever I had to talk for a long time back in my old world."

Grimsby chuckled and said "Not just in your old world I'm afraid My Prince, you had that problem when you first began speaking here as well if you recall."

I snorted and said "That was more me trying to work with a new mouth than anything, believe you me. Back in my old world, sometimes every other sentence would have me tripping." Shaking my head, I continued "And having that migraine that was pretty darn close to a minor stroke when I was in my early twenties didn't help either I'm sure."

Grimsby made a noncommittal noise and we fell into silence for ten minutes before as one we turned our heads as one of the servants opened the door and beckoned us in. Muttering a "That was fast." under my breath, the two of us reentered the throne room and came to a stop in front of my parents.

My father's main advisor wasted no time as he gave their verdict and said "Prince Eric, after debating the pros and cons of giving the go ahead for your project, we have come to the conclusion that it would be beneficial for this country if you proceed with your plans. Therefore, we are authorizing you to begin this project as soon as possible. You shall be granted access to all of this country's resources in order to complete this project so long as the first station is up by the end of this calendar year, which gives you ten months."

I nodded to the advisor and said "Easily done so long as I have access to the necessary supplies to construct the station sir. I already have all of the necessary runes for the stations designed and I know a metal worker who has agreed to make the large stamps we will need for them. I have also contacted a stone mason about the rune tablets so we're already covered on that angle as well. What I'm currently lacking is access to the needed timber and manpower since I wanted to wait for your permission before I ordered a small forest worth of lumber and I wasn't sure how to gather the necessary work force for this."

The advisor nodded as well and said "You are well prepared Prince Eric which is good, and we will be happy to help with the rest."

The rest of the meeting quickly turned into one of logistics as we began working on where the man power would be coming from as well as the necessary building supplies. My mother and father quickly joined in as they put their own experience with running the country to good use. By the end of the meeting, we already had a game plan and construction would begin within a month.

Time Skip: Two Years (Twelve Years Old)

I was currently standing on a turbine housing that was on top of a rather large two hundred foot tall tripod watching as the workers hauled the turbine up into the air between two three hundred foot tall scaffolds that were twenty five feet forward and on either side of the tripod. As they hauled the turbine higher into the air, I found myself thanking whoever had invented runes since without them turning that turbine from a several hundred pound weight to fifty pounds this would have been impossible without nuclear age tech cranes. When the turbine was at the appropriate height, it was pulled in front of the housing and workers who were using 'suction' runes climbed up the top two blades and connected the turbine to a set of ropes that were parallel with the housing and connected to the perpendicular ropes by a third scaffolding behind the tripod. As the turbine was being pulled closer to the turbine, I looked at my rune tablet checking once again on the status of the solar and lightning collector runes.

Construction of the first SEAL POGS station had gone rather well once everyone who was hired for the project had been given a crash course in its design followed by a more thorough course on its construction and thanks to runes cutting most of the hard work down to a fraction of what it could be it was finished in four months well within the ten months we were given and most of that time was building the necessary equipment needed to make the stations. The second station would have been finished even faster if not for its larger size thanks to everyone knowing what they had to do much better due to familiarity. And now we were putting the last piece on the third station two years after my meeting to get the wheel rolling.

Of course, the only reason why it had even taken two years to get this station up and running instead of one year was because I had been busy along with the rest of my workforce installing all of the runes in all of the government buildings and a good chunk of the royal fleet. Our progress in the installation of those runes was started once the first station was running and continued on until just after the second station was finished. Once this third station was up and running we would be making all of the utility runes available in all buildings in the country and the rest of this country's ships would be outfitted as well.

The loud clicking of the turbine being locked in place in its housing drew me out of my thoughts and I checked that the staggered braking runes had activated on contact and were holding the wind blades steady. Seeing that they were, I gave a nod to one of the supervisors on the right scaffold who gave a nod of his own before he began barking out orders for everyone to clear the station and disassemble the scaffolding so we could bring the station on line. I followed the workers as we climbed down the ladder set into the fourth leg of the tripod and brought the master control rune for the station at its base up on my tablet.

Thirty minutes later, the scaffolding was dissembled thanks to the runes that were used instead of rope and nails and everyone including me was clear of the tripod standing three hundred feet from the tripod legs. With us were my parents and their advisors along with other VIPs who were here to watch as the final station was made operational. Doing my best to ignore the presence of said VIPs, I looked down at my tablet which now showed all of the runes in the area and I said "Beginning the process of removing the weight lightening runes in three, two, one."

I swiped at a status bar on my screen and the structure groaned as all of the runes on the tripod and turbine that kept the structure light enough to build began to gradually turn off. Ten minutes of the structure groaning and moaning like an old man later as its weight fully settled, the runes flashed once before they vanished leaving only the collector runes present. Nodding as I got confirmation that the tripod was fully settled, I said "Bringing the sea section on line." Looking towards the ocean where the collection of hinged logs were, we all saw the runes there flash and my tablet beeped once at me as it registered the runes there beginning to collect energy. I looked down at it and nodded as I saw that the energy that was being collected was going to be well in the expected range. I switched windows towards the ground based station and said "Bringing ground section on line." There was another beep and I nodded as I said "Ground station is also reporting expected energy collection."

Now came the fun part. The sea and ground stations had already been tested before the tripod was constructed so it was simply a matter of turning them on. The wind station however had never been tested besides the solar and electricity collectors. I brought those runes up to full power before I said "Unlocking the turbine now." There was a distinctive CLICK sound as all of the runes in the staggered braking cluster unlocked simultaneously and I continued "Activating wind runes." A line of runes running down each turbine began flashing one after the other from the center of the turbine to the end of the blades before the inner row began glowing. The glow began to slowly build and slowly, oh so slowly, it ponderously began to turn. As the blades began turning, the crowd behind me let out a loud cheer and I grinned as I began activating the rest of the wind runes. One after another, the rows of runes began glowing and the turbine began picking up speed. Within five minutes, the turbine was running at a speed that left the blades looking like a blur and I grinned as my tablet said that the wing tips were travelling at a speed of two hundred miles, which was just over nuclear age wind farm turbines and which were easily self-sustained now thanks to the momentum keeping runes that were set in the turbine's axel. This meant that the turbine was creating more wind than it took to keep it going and all of that power was going into the central collection rune along with all of the rest of the energy that was being gathered to be sent to the Battery.

"Turbine is now at self-sustaining level, activating the centrifugal force energy collection runes in three, two, one." There was a final beep from my tablet and my grin just about split my face as I said "All collection runes are now active and generating the expected amounts of energy and sending it to the Battery. SEAL POGS 3 is now officially Online."

There was another massive cheer from the workers who wasted no time in congratulating themselves on a job well done. As the VIPs approached me I mentally prepared myself for all of the niceties that I was about to endure even as my mind began going over everything I would need to begin the first stage of sending satellites into orbit now that we would have enough extra power available to send them up there.

Time Skip: Three Years (15 Years Old)

It was a dark and stormy night. And as cliché as that sentence is, it really was a dark and stormy night tonight as I ran final checks on the runes that would send the last satellite needed to complete the shell of said orbital runes around our planet into its rightful place above said planet. Fortunately the storm that had lightning flashing down every five to seven minutes into the lightning collectors of SEAL POGS 2 didn't have any rain in it and wasn't going to be hanging around long only staying until just before the grey light hour of tomorrow's dawn. And let me tell you having access to meteorology data certainly came in handy now that we had almost complete global overhead coverage. We had even managed to pinpoint where Atlantis was with the satellites that were positioned over the ocean that surrounded our country three months ago thanks to the ocean current data they provide us. And if you're asking yourself how a satellite in orbit could possibly provide ocean current data then I should reiterate that runes are just that badass.

As another bolt of lightning struck the air station half a mile away from our launch pad, I checked the last rune on the launcher tube that acted much like a MAC gun in hurtling the rune tablet satellites into orbit. Nodding at seeing it was just as ready for tomorrow as the rest of the runes, I powered down my tablet and put it in its satchel and looked out at the ocean that was churning with all of the wind that was being blown around. There was another flash of lightning, this one impacting one of the sea based hydrokinetic collectors on the left edge of the sea array and for a brief instant I saw a small dot of red in the ocean.

I felt a frown grow on my face as I pulled out a set of binoculars that had a set of runes on them allowing them to work just as well at night as during the day and brought them up to my eyes. It took me a short while to find the dot again but when I did, I saw that there was a person in the water. I almost thought it was a certain daughter of King Triton but the hair was cut extremely close to the top of the head and the face structure was clearly that of a man instead of a woman and that of one easily in his forties instead of teens. The figure gave the storm clouds above it a worried look before it dived down into the ocean depths, blue tail briefly breaching the surface before the merman disappeared entirely. I lowered the binoculars with a confused frown on my face wondering about what I had seen before I shrugged and decided that it wasn't any of my business. Doing an absentminded visual check on SEAL POGS 2's turbine, I began making my way back to the palace three miles to the north and thought 'Things are going along quite well if I do say so myself.'

The next day dawned bright and clear without any evidence of last night's thunderstorm present. I watched the sun rise with my parents before we made our way to the heavily secured building which housed the rune based computers that monitored and controlled our Satellite net. When we entered the room that held the computers linked to the launching pad I settled into one of the stations in the back and looked up at the three large screens up front which showed a ground level and angled top down view of the launch pad and the overall status of the satellite grid even as I brought the main menu up and said "Status report."

The other two people sitting at their own stations quickly confirmed that the launcher was ready for its final planned use for the foreseeable future, that the rune tablet that we were about to send into space was loaded and its runes were on standby and finally that there was no one within five miles of the launch site. I looked back at my own station ensuring that we had a clear shot into the black and that the satellite web was ready to incorporate its final piece before I said "We are go for launch, count us down Mr. Gibbs." I once again mentally cackled at having a Gibbs working with me even if it wasn't the one from PoTC. Could have been Leroy's ancestor for all I knew though so that was cool.

"Aye sir." The man in charge of activating the launcher said and lifted a small glass case open over a very important looking rune as he continued "Launch in T minus ten seconds on my mark, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, Launch!" His hand pushed on the rune as the last word left his mouth and the ground view screen showed the launch tube lighting up like an omnidirectional lighthouse beacon for five seconds before there was an almighty _**CRACK**_ that was heard in our building two miles from the launch pad as the rune was sent upwards at hypersonic speeds. The screen showing the ground view instantly switched to a split screen showing a height chart and a video feed from a camera rune on the cluster which was currently nothing but a blurred tunnel of blue as we tracked the heaven bound rune cluster as it punched through the atmosphere like it wasn't even there. As I watched the dot representing the cluster ascend, I smirked and thought 'I've said it before and I'll say it again, who needs rockets when you've got runes?'

Before a minute after launch was up, the blue filling half of the screen turned to black and we began to see stars as the cluster continued on its hypersonic course. I gave it another ten seconds until the height chart said it was safely above the rest of the grid and I began typing as I said "Activating guidance runes and sending final coordinates." The stars on the screen shifted and a blue glow appeared on the bottom of the screen as the rune cluster tilted and began traveling southwards while keeping its speed. In response to this, the height chart switched to an image of the globe with the dot representing the rune cluster turning blue as it tracked down towards Antarctica. A yellow dot hung over the magnetic south pole which turned green as the blue dot overlapped it and then turned yellow again as it continued past before I hit the brakes on the cluster and began maneuvering it back in a long turning loop so that way the two dots were overlapping again. Once we had only one green dot again, the globe went back to a height chart and I set in the necessary height. The screen showing the top down view of the launch pad shifted to a magnified side view from the nearest locked satellite and we watched as the cluster lowered to its designated position in the grid. When it was at the right height, I locked its position and all three of us began typing as we linked the cluster with the rest of the grid. When we were done, I leaned back form my station with a sigh and said "Well, the satellite grid's finally finished and with any luck we won't need the launcher for a good few years until we're ready to start constructing a lunar based station in a couple of decades. Good work guys."

That would be fun, working out the right runes needed to make a base much in the same way as the Tok'ra made their bases using crystals in the SG-1 TV series. The only reason why I didn't have the rough draft of the list of needed runes for that already started was because we still didn't have working heavier than air aircraft in the skies yet, something which I didn't plan to introduce for another few years in order to keep this world from becoming stagnant once I had finished introducing Nuclear age tech to the world via runes. Not that I would throw a fuss if someone else managed to bring powered flight to this world first but I seriously doubted there would be a working model bigger than the Wright Brothers' first plane for a good while yet. Runes were bloody brilliant but they didn't do you any good if you couldn't get them to work together properly and there was a lot more that went into airplanes than just thrust and steering after all. Besides, I intended to introduce something that was distinctly more car like before I started on planes. Cars were slightly easier to fix if they crashed after all.

I shook my head from those thoughts as I began sending a message to all of the countries we were allies with that the Satellite grid was finally fully operational and that I was removing all limitations of its use for them now that they could get the full effect instead of simply using it for weather forecasts. Included in the message was a code that they were told to put in their own satellite monitoring stations that would remove all the limitations except for control over the Satellites' guidance systems and black out programs. I was sure that within twenty four hours our allies would be scrabbling to open new mines in their home countries now that they had ground penetration capabilities to show where the really juicy mineral veins cash wise were. With the Satellite grid started over our own country first we had obviously already done the same and our economy had hit a financial boom that usually took a war to replicate as my rune digging system got serious overhauls in order to increase mining efficiency. Just one more way I had taken technology from my old world and supercharged it using runes.

Time Skip: Three Years (18 Years Old)

Contrary to both mine and my parents' beliefs, I was actually on a ship as we floated above a spot that our ocean penetrating satellites had shown Flounder was prone to travel to occasionally. With me were my parents who despite my knowledge of the Little Mermaid films were still both healthy and very much alive. Considering the number of storms they had been in while on ocean voyages though I was sure that the ship runes powered by SEAL POGS had something to do with that.

The three of us watched as a light weight runed crate with a hinged bottom was maneuvered off the ship's deck and hauled out and down over the ocean. A quick pull of rope undid the latch on the bottom and the statue wasted no time in dropping the three feet into the water. Guidance runes on the bottom of the statue ensured it stayed upright for the entire ride down even as the crate was brought back onto the deck and our ship began turning back towards land.

Once properly oriented, the propulsions runes under the waterline kicked in and the ship lurched forward at a comfortable pace of twenty knots as we began making our way back to our country. As we moved back towards home, I tracked the statue as it fell on my Tablet until it hit the bottom. Once there, I activated a onetime use rune that would send out a pulse of energy that would peak someone's interest once it detected a certain profile was in its range. Precautions taken, I shut down my Tablet and began making my way to where my parents were. Had I at any point looked skyward I might have caught sight of a particular seagull watching our progress with a curious glint in his eye even as he longed to have been able to gather whatever it was that we had seemingly tossed away for no reason he could figure out.

Once back on terra firma, my birthday began in full swing as a bonfire was lit and 'beach' party food (or at least this day and age's equivalent of such) was being prepared. It really threw off most of the nobles who were invited from our allied countries but at least they now knew why they had been told to wear clothes they wouldn't mind to get sand in. Personally, I think they were more shocked by the volleyball net we had set up and the fact that I was bouncing an iron ball around like it only weighed 10 oz on my wrists without them snapping in half. Sometimes I really did love runes.

It wasn't long before me and the rest of the noble youths of our country had a volleyball game going even as we explained the rules to the visitors. Ten minutes later there was a game going on between the 'home team' of the natives against the 'visiting team' comprised of all of the out of country guests with me acting as referee. While this was going on, my parents were holding court with the older guests and I noticed that father was apparently telling an old naval story judging by all of the naval hand gestures he was unconsciously making as he told his tale.

The rest of the day continued in a similar fashion with the youths playing various beach games including a sand castle building competition and a competition where two teams had to quickly build trenches that linked two four foot deep sand pits to the water fifteen feet away where the winners of the competition was the first to dig and then fill their pit with sea water. The adults spent most of the time taking advantage of the fact that they were all in one area to work out new agreements with each other and give each other status updates about operations being run in their countries that affected the others. While the world now had access to forms of instant communication via runes thanks to SEAL POGS, nothing truly beat face to face meetings and the adults were taking advantage of that.

As the day turned to night, servants brought long tables down to the beach and a more formal dinner was held. Once the usual toasts were out of the way and everyone had had their fill, my father gave me a nudge and we stood up together. My father picked up his glass with one hand and placed a proud arm around my shoulders as he said "Today we celebrate another year added to a person's life, a life that has brought much change to the world which could not be possible without his extreme commitment to the art of Runecrafting, an art which my son has fully embraced even without a shred of magic in his body. And as he passes from childhood to adulthood, I have no doubt that he shall continue to improve our world, to Eric." He raised his glass and everyone mimicked his action as they echoed "To Eric."

Once everyone had taken the customary sip from their glasses, I grinned as a servant handed me my Tablet and said "Thanks father. But now it's time to put away the formalities for now and have some entertainment. If all of you would please direct your attention to the ocean, we can begin tonight's show." As everyone did as I requested, I tapped a message out on the Tablet. A moment later, a firework screamed its way off the temporary platform that was out at sea. It was soon joined by others launched from its starting point and other nearby platforms. The next thirty minutes passed with everyone enjoying the firework show. I was brought out of my enjoyment of the show when my dog Max nuzzled my side.

Leaning down so that way my ear was closer to the runed collar that allowed Max to communicate with humans, (And boy was that a hit with pet owners when I put it on the market three years ago) I said "What is it Max?"

"Master, there is a strange scent in the area by the cove." Max jerked his shaggy head towards where a bunch of large rocks that had fallen from the cliff the palace was on several decades ago hid a small cove from casual viewing while on the beach. When he saw I had looked there, he continued "Smells like a woman, but also smells like a fish. And not just as if she had been eating fish all her life but actually part of her scent."

"Can you tell how old?" I asked.

"Younger than you, but not by much." Max replied and I looked towards the cove again weighing my options. Chances were good that was Ariel over there. But seeing as I was the birthday boy it would be hard to slip away unnoticed even with it being dark and the fireworks distracting everyone. On the other hand, no one would pay Max any attention considering he was a dog and so I took out my tablet and activated the camera function I had added one day when I was bored that made it look like I was looking out of Max's eyes and said "Think you could get a closer look without spooking whoever it is and then come back Max?"

The sheep dog gave an enthusiastic nod and said "Yes Master, I can do that." He stood up and began walking at a fast pace that wasn't quite a trot with his nose to the sand acting like he was tracking a scent across the sands constantly making his way to the rocks that were just over a football field away lit up by the bonfire that was still going strong without making it actually look like they were his actual destination. I smirked as I watched him going all spy mode for a moment before I went back to watching the show, keeping one eye on my Tablet which I kept below the table line to keep from attracting too much attention.

When Max reached the rocks I switched the camera to night vision mode and watched as he began moving around the rocks still acting like he was tracking a scent. Moving behind one of the bigger rocks, I saw the camera stop moving in a sweeping gesture and instead began moving quickly through the remaining rocks until he reached the cove. When he got there I saw that there was in fact a young mermaid sitting on the beach watching the fireworks with her arms wrapped around her bent tail. The night vision only showed things in tinges of green so I couldn't tell what color her hair was but it was certainly long enough to be Ariel's if the films got her image right.

Max stayed just long enough to give me a quick ten second look before he began making his way back. I allowed myself a mental pat on the back with how well I had trained him ever since I got him as a puppy three years ago. Being able to understand him so that way I could train him better had been the whole reason why I had designed the 'pet talker' collars in the first place. When he returned to the table, I gave him a good rub behind his right ear and gave him a treat token which was a five inch wide round piece of wood with the word treat engraved on it that he was to deliver to the chefs in the kitchens that they would trade for a snack. Max happily grabbed the token and took off towards the palace eager to get his reward. I chuckled at the sight before I turned back to watching the show turning off the camera rune as I did so.

Time Skip: The Next Day

I blinked as I heard singing drifting on the wind from my spot on the highest rock hiding the cove and lowered my pipe flute as I listened for a moment. Apparently the singer was feeling rather out of place as she sang about not meeting expectations and wondering if she was born in the right world. I got the rather distinct impression the singer got her inspiration from Mulan's Reflection before I shrugged and went back to playing softly on my flute. By my side, Max began sniffing the air even as he turned to the singing but decided that if I wasn't interested then there was no cause for him to be either and he laid his head back down on his paws and went back to sleep. As I continued playing I scanned the ocean around me and spotted the singer on a rock in the ocean about thirty feet in the water a good quarter of a mile down the beach where the sand quickly turned into gravel and then sheer cliffs. I watched the figure for a short while before the girl, a redhead (Which was rather expected considering the nature of the song), turned and dived down into the ocean.

"So that was our future queen."

I stiffened at the unexpected voice, flute falling silent before I turned to look down at where Grimsby was standing on a lower rock looking towards where the singer had been, cool and collected as a cucumber. Lowering the flute to my lap, I said "Grimsby, have I ever told you how you would make the perfect shinobi with how quiet you can be when you want to?"

My ever faithful servant chuckled and said "Many times My Prince." Looking up towards me, he said "Your father asked me to inform you that he expects you to be at the royal dock in forty minutes to see off Duke Reynolds when he leaves."

I blinked and said "He's leaving already? I thought all of the guests were staying for another day at least so that way they could hold a proper conference with our royal court."

Grimsby sighed and said "Unfortunately news that his youngest daughter has fallen ill has reached us so he has decided to return home to be closer with her. He will still be part of the conference but will be attending via video feed back at his residence."

"Which he can get to near instantly using the teleportation rune on his ship, thus the reason for the sendoff at the dock." I said earning a nod from Grimsby. I gently nudged Max awake and the two of us stood up and made our way down to where Grimsby was before the three of us began making our way back up to the palace so that way I could change into more suitable clothes for the sendoff.

Time Skip: The Next Day (Again)

My parents were happily playing Scrabble against each other in their study on the new 'game desk' that I had given them as a birthday gift to my father this year while I walked along the beach with Max back towards the cove. Twenty minutes ago, satellite imaging had picked up a red head wearing nothing but two seashells for a bra stumbling out of the ocean like she had spent two hours straight drinking at a bar and then spent a further hour in a gyroscope machine. As such, I was going out to meet her and Grimsby had rounded up some of the palace servants to get them ready to make our not so unexpected guest decent when I brought her up.

As we got closer to the rocks, the wind shifted and Max's head perked up. He tilted his head in curiosity and said "Master, the young woman's scent is back, but it seems more human."

I nodded and said "That's to be expected considering she's been changed into one."

Max gave me a confused look but somehow managed to shrug his front shoulders even as he kept walking. When we reached the rocks and began making our way through them, we found our guest leaning against one of the rocks closer to the cove trying to walk with her legs wobbling. Max let out a bark, one clearly meant to get someone's attention since the collar didn't translate it, and Ariel's head snapped towards us in surprise. Said surprise was enough for her to lose her balance and she dropped onto her butt in the sand.

Max happily ran over to her causing a scared look to go across the girl's face before I said "Don't worry, Max is harmless so long as he doesn't think you're a danger to him or any of those he knows." Walking over to where she was still on the ground, I offered a hand and said "It's good to finally meet you Princess Ariel, my name's Eric, and if I may say so the films really didn't do you justice." It was true, while the TLM films had always shown Ariel in a good light physically, the real life version of her made the film version look like a high school prom queen standing next to a career super model.

Ariel gained a confused look even as she accepted the hand. As I pulled her up to her new feet she opened her mouth and tried to say something, most likely asking what I was talking about and how I knew her name only for nothing to come out. Her free hand automatically went to her throat as a distressed look crossed her face. Seeing her distress, I said "Don't worry, I know about the contract you made and I'll get your voice back before the day is out."

I ignored the confused look in her eyes as I took the blanket I had draped over my other arm off and wrapped it around her naked form leaving the arms free and folded the blanket end in so that it wouldn't slip off before I gently pushed her to lean against the rock she had previously been up against. Turning around, I spotted Flounder and Sabastian watching from the water and said "She'll be safe with me you two. Sabastian, I would appreciate it if you could inform King Triton where his daughter is and that I wish to speak with him in regards to what is to become of his daughter now that she is land bound. We'll be waiting on the beach for him once I get Ariel properly clothed."

Sabastian gave me a shrewd look before he nodded and grabbed Flounder's fin and began dragging him away. Turning back to Ariel who still had a confused look on her face, I gently took her left arm and draped it over my shoulders and said "Come on, let's get you inside so we can get some proper clothes on you."

We began making our way back to the palace and were soon in the building. Much to my pleasant surprise, Ariel appeared to be a quick study when it came to walking since she didn't need to lean against me when we walked through one of the service entrances where Grimsby and two other servants, both female for obvious reasons were waiting for us. As I gently pushed Ariel towards them, I said "I leave our guest in your capable hands ladies. She's currently under a spell that's blocking her voice so please don't flood her with questions that can't be answered with yes or no and don't give her anything too fancy since we'll be heading down to the beach once I have retrieved some things from the kitchens."

Well used to the concept of magic, the two servants nodded before they began leading Ariel away. She sent a worried look over her shoulder at me but a small smile from me had her relaxing and following the two. As the women turned a corner, Grimsby and I began making our own way to the kitchens with Max happily following and I asked "Are my parents aware Ariel has arrived?"

Grimsby nodded and said "They are My Prince, they wished me to tell you that they will leave the first meeting with King Triton in your hands. They said it would be good practice for when you take over."

I sighed at that and said "They would say something like that now that I'm eighteen again." I took the both weight lightened and space enlarge rune equipped basket that one of the chefs handed me with a nod of thanks and took ten treat tokens from their container while I was in the room. As me and Grimsby left and headed back to the service entrance I continued the conversation and said "So what do you think would be better to do first when we meet with King Triton, restore Princess Ariel's voice or convince dear dad that it would be better for her to become the liaison between our two countries?"

"I would restore her voice first so that way you could prove you mean her no harm and she could provide more input than simply nodding or shaking her head and pantomiming." Grimsby said.

"Fair enough, but you do realize this guy's not going to be happy with me kissing his youngest daughter right?" I said.

Grimsby frowned and said "And unfortunately you can't kiss her before he arrives since we need the spell still active to prove we are being truthful. After all, if Ariel is able to talk when he arrives, he can just claim that we simply told her to go along with whatever we say if she knows what's good for her."

I sighed and rubbed my free palm down my head and said "It is times like these that I wish I had been a lawyer in my previous life. At least then I'd have already had experience with these kinds of situations."

Grimsby allowed himself a chuckle before we fell silent as we reached the service entrance. We only had to wait another ten minutes before the two servants came back with Ariel between them. They had given her a simple white sundress that had blue trimming along its top that became the straps of the dress and a pair of small shoes that were relatively tight above the ankles but provided plenty of movement in the feet, perfect for spending time on the beach without getting sand between your toes. Ariel gave me a nervous smile when she saw me examining what she was wearing and I gave her a small smile of my own before I gave the servants a nod of thanks. The two servants gave a quick dip and flare of their work dresses in a shortened curtsy before they turned around and went to work on other duties. Grimsby gave my shoulder a pat before he called for Max to follow him and walked away leaving only me and the mermaid turned human alone at the service entrance.

Giving a sigh as I ran a hand through my hair, I said "I'll be honest with you princess, I'm not exactly looking forward to meeting your father considering all of the you hurt her and they'll never find the body talks I've heard so much about."

Ariel's right hand went to her mouth as she began silently giggling. Apparently merman fathers were just as protective of their daughters as those who walked on land. Gaining her composure, Ariel took the last few steps to stand beside me and poked me in the chest before she used the same hand to give a thumbs up.

I blinked once before I said "Hopefully, that means you think I'll be fine." When Ariel gave a quick nod, I sighed again and said "Let's hope your right." Offering my free arm, I said "Well, no point dwelling on it I guess, let's go."

Ariel happily wrapped an arm around mine and we began making our way back to the beach. Once there, I opened the basket and pulled out a large picnic cloth and set it down on the ground. Gesturing for Ariel to sit on it, I placed the basket on its edge and sat down opposite of her before I began pulling things out. Starting with a fork, I said "I'll explain in detail when your father arrives but I know that if the films I've seen were right, and most of them have been so far, you've been getting your information about human objects from a seagull right?" At Ariel's nod, I continued "Well I'm here to tell you that that bird was a few gears short of a working watch when it came to what he supposedly knew. This for instance, isn't a dinglehopper and it certainly isn't used for combing our hair. It's actually a fork and is used for eating."

The next twenty minutes was spent having lunch on the beach with me explaining all of the cutleries to Ariel and how to use them. Once we were finished eating the meal provided by the kitchen staff, I moved to other everyday objects ranging from combs and brushes to a small telescope. Ariel continued to be a surprisingly quick study, learning everything as fast as she had walking and she answered correctly every time I asked her to point to a certain object and demonstrate how to properly use it. We had just started on learning how to properly use a quill to write the alphabet that my country used since the merpeople had a completely different form of writing method considering they were underwater and so couldn't use easily malleable liquid substances such as ink when we heard a throat clear itself.

Turning around, I got my first look at King Triton and his narrowed eyes and immediately thought 'Oh great, he already thinks I'm a devil spawn.' Quickly shelving that thought, I stood up and bowed at the waist as I said "Thank you for coming so quickly Your Highness. My name is Eric, and I'm the current heir to this country's throne. I wished to speak with you because Princess Ariel was placed under a rather nasty spell by a certain sea witch and there is a certain requirement she must fulfill if she does not want to become a victim of hers."

Triton's eyes narrowed further as he said "I see, what was this spell may I ask and what requirement?"

"Well," I said nervously rubbing the back of my head and said "It's been a while since I've actually seen the film, but I believe the basics were that in order to change Ariel into a human, she had to give Ursula her voice and if she did not manage to receive a kiss from me by the sunset of her third day on land than she is returned to being a mermaid and her soul belongs to Ursula. Did I get that right?" I asked Ariel who nodded even as she gave her father a nervous look.

Triton's eyes narrowed yet again making me wonder how he could still see and asked "And how do you know of this if my daughter cannot speak?"

I let a chuckle pass my lips and said "Well that is something that could take a while to explain. Are you aware of reincarnation and the multiverse theory?"

"I am aware of the theory of reincarnation but I do not know of this multiverse theory. I find myself confused to how being reborn could give you information about what happened miles under the sea though."

"Then let me clarify for you." I said and after giving an explanation for the multiverse theory metaphorically dived right into my life story explaining about the Disney films and how when I realized just what kind of place I was in began making plans to not only be ready for if said films were real but also began researching runes so I could help advance the world we lived in.

When I was finished, I took a sip of water from one of the canteens that came with the basket to get some moisture back in my throat. Capping and putting it back, I stood up and cracked my spine, it had been a long time since I had moved from the blanket after all, and said "The way I see it sir we have two choices for how to proceed when it comes to your daughter."

"And what would those be?" Triton asked with just a hint of warning in his voice.

"Well whatever we decide I'm going to break that spell on her, that's a given since I saw what happens when you try to get her out of the contract." I said before I moved to sit by Ariel and lowered myself even as I continued "But our choices are that once the spell is broken, you use your trident to turn her back into a mermaid and the two of you return back to Atlantis. The problem with this is the fact that Ariel feels like she was born in the wrong world and she's finally got a taste of being a human. If we go with this option she could possibly fall into a depression and be rather hard to work with from now on." Ariel's face fell at that option thereby proving my point. I gave her hand a quick squeeze before I continued "The second option is that you allow her to remain top side with us and grant her the position of being Atlantis' ambassador. She stays here with us for a year which gives us plenty of time to see if the two of us are actually compatible enough to fall for each other. If it turns out that we aren't in fact made for each other, she can decide to go back to Atlantis or stay up here and continue working as an ambassador."

"First things first though," I said and turned towards Ariel and gently turned her face towards me with my right hand and pausing just long enough to say "Sorry for being so forward Princess." I gently drew closer and laid a kiss on her lips. There was no fire or lightning running through our bodies accompanying the kiss like in most stories though both of us closed our eyes as I counted to ten in my head before opening my eyes and pulled back. As Ariel opened her own eyes, I asked "So did that do it Ariel?"

"I think so." The redhead hesitatingly said before her eyes lit up and she said "I can talk again!" The girl leaned over and gave me a bear hug that somehow had my ribs groaning as she thanked me. I gave her a one armed hug back before I looked towards Triton and said "So what's your decision sir? I don't know what the age merpeople are considered adults is but in my country it won't be for another two years for Ariel. That means as far as I know, the final call is still yours to make as her father."

"Indeed it is." Triton said before he sighed and said "Could I please have a word with my daughter in private?"

I nodded and stood up as I said "Of course Your Highness, take as long as you need." I walked over to the cliff giving the two the privacy asked for yet still remaining in sight. I watched the two talking for a good thirty minutes with Ariel becoming more determined and Triton more resigned. Finally Triton gave a heavy sigh before he nodded. He then used his trident to turn himself into a human and walked ashore with far more grace than his daughter did the first time and fully clothed in what could pass as very fancy sailor clothes at that which caused me to raise an eyebrow. His daughter wasted no time in giving him a hug as soon as he was out of the water which he returned before she turned and gestured me over.

Walking over, I said "Can I assume by the fact that you've gone temporarily human that you wish to speak with my parents sire?"

Triton nodded and said "That is correct. My daughter has convinced me to allow her to remain a human for at least one year and I wish to discuss the matter with the rulers of this country."

I nodded and packed everything back in the basket and picked it up before I gestured for the two to follow me. We quickly made our way up to the palace where I led the two to my parents' study. When we entered the study, my parents looked up before my father put their game of scrabble on hold and minimized the game display on the game desk and the two stood. Moving to stand between them and our guests, I said "Father, Mother, allow me to introduce King Triton and his daughter Princess Ariel. Your majesty, these are my parents, King Orlando and Queen Racheil."

The four traded the proper greetings before Triton dove right into the discussion with my parents he wanted. As he spoke with my parents I saw Ariel giving the game table a curious look. Moving to stand closer to her, I pulled out my rune tablet and brought up the table's gaming programs that it could access thanks to being a universal rune manipulation system and began explaining the various games held on it. It wasn't long before the two of us were sitting on one of the longer couches in the study with the tablet between us playing checkers while keeping an ear on where the 'grown ups' talked.

As Ariel made a double jump gambit to get one of her pieces in position to be kinged on her next turn she frowned and said "Eric, you said that in the first Little Mermaid film you watched back in your old world Ursula had a way to watch what was happening between that Ariel and Eric. What's stopping her from observing us now and making plans to retaliate for you breaking the spell that was on me so soon?"

I gave her an evil grin that any Naruto Uzumaki who just came up with the ultimate prank would be proud of that caused Ariel to actually lean away a little as I said "Because for the past five years this entire country and everything for two miles outside of its borders has been under an anti-scrying barrier powered by a dedicated set of two SEAL POGS stations that're completely separate from the rest of the power grid and hidden under powerful cloaking and camouflage systems that you can only bypass with a certain rune cluster that is a secret held very close to the chest for those in the know. The only thing that can take images or sounds of this country from the outside is the Satellite grid up in orbit and if you don't have both the right rune system and codes that we provide to our allies then you can't access said grid and even that has limits that the other countries must work with. As far as any attempts to scry on us from outside the barrier are concerned, this country might as well not even exist. It's one of the many perks that our allies have found comes with being a card carrying member so to speak since we offer the same anti scrying barrier to them as well. The best part though is that this barrier doesn't affect anything else, communication runes can send their signals through the barrier with no problem and physical objects don't even feel anything as they pass through."

I saw the quick mind that Ariel had shown earlier rapidly spinning the gears in her head for a moment before she asked "Is there any chance of obtaining the runes for this barrier for Atlantis' use?"

I nodded even as I made my move on the tablet between the two of us and said "With you becoming at the very least the ambassador between your country and mine I'm sure your people will be receiving at the very least a single modified SEAL POGS station they can assemble and the plans to our utility runes for everyday use. It would not surprise me if the scrying barrier and the two stations to maintain it are offered as well although there would have to be some modifications done to allow your barrier to work properly without ruining any of our ships' depth finder and other nautical sensing systems. It wouldn't do for a ship to cross the barrier only to see that there is a reef not twenty feet in front of it."

Ariel nodded showing she understood that point as she got her king only for me to get one of my own and our game was kicked up a notch as the new element came into play. I frowned down at the board for a moment before I continued our conversation with "Speaking of giving your people access to our utility runes, we're going to have to get you in the Matrix chair soon so that way you actually know how to use our runic utilities while you're here." Seeing the questioning look in Ariel's eyes, I gave a nonchalant wave of a hand and said "I'll explain more when I show it to you but it's essentially a teaching tool we use to quickly send information to a person's brain which saves time in training people." Ariel made a soft "Oh" before she put her full focus back on the game and we both fell silent.

We played various games for an hour before our parents were done drawing up the new alliance. Considering most alliance treaties took months to hammer out the finer details I was honestly surprised how quickly the negotiations had occurred. Then again, it wasn't like us humans would be able to just casually go down to Atlantis on weekends to go to the market for exotic goods so some things were naturally not covered in the treaty. What was apparently covered though was that in exchange for access to utility runes and at least three modified SEAL POGS stations (Two for the modified anti scrying barrier, one for other power usage) we would be getting rights to launch recovery missions for those ships that had sunk in Atlantis' vicinity in the past with help in said recovery by the citizens of said underwater nation. There were a dozen other relatively smaller details of course but that had been the biggest one. I got the feeling that King Triton would be quite happy to see all of the ship wrecks in his country brought back to the surface so that way he wouldn't have to look at all of the human stuff in his backyard.

When I heard the others standing up, I paused the game we were playing (Sorry) and stood up. Ariel was quick to join me and gave me a nervous look out of the corner of her eye as her father approached us. He studied the two of us for a moment before he said solemnly "I leave the care of my daughter in your hands Prince Eric, do not make me regret that."

I gave him a salute and said "She'll be well looked after Your Highness, you have my word on that."

King Triton studied me for another moment before he gave his daughter one last hug and a whispered word in her ear before his trident flashed and he faded away like a hologram causing me to blink and said "Huh, that's new."

The next hour was spent showing Ariel where she would be sleeping along with a tour of the castle, a tour which ended in front of a highly secured door that had a biometric scanning rune and an iris scanner rune attached to its lock. Once I had been scanned and my bio and iris signatures had been confirmed, the door unlocked with a click and we entered a room that held shelves that held hundreds of stone rune tablets and a rather futuristic looking chair considering the time period we were in. Beside the chair was a stone table with a rune computer set in it along with ten slots going down the right side of the table.

As I closed the door behind Ariel which closed with a click and then a hum as a blue energy field appeared around all of the walls, ceiling and floor including the door for a second before fading away, I said "Welcome to what we call the Matrix chair. We were finally able to create a working model last year after four years of careful rune research. What it does is it takes the information stored on data tablets and copies it to your mind in a manner that allows the brain to assimilate it without the information overwriting anything already there."

"You can do that?" Ariel asked with wide eyes as she looked at the hundreds of data tablets that were housed in shelves all along the walls of the ten by fifteen room.

I nodded and said "Yeah, depending on the size of the information stored on the tablets, information assimilation is anywhere between fifteen minutes to three hours with the average time being around forty five minutes. With the ability to transfer knowledge so easily you can probably understand why I designed such a high level of security for this room when I had been working on designing the rune schematic needed to make it work."

"I can, this kind of ability could potentially allow you to train an entire army in a fraction of the time if mass produced, or even turn others against their countries if one modified it to send commands instead of information." Ariel said once more showing that the first film really didn't do her intelligence the proper justice it deserved.

Giving her a nod, I went to the first shelf and pulled out two tablets before I selected a third tablet from the shelf two shelves down. Placing the three tablets in the slots of the table, I said "We'll start off with domestic rune use, followed by basic sciences and then a general etiquette program that I had made especially with you in mind that covers the various etiquettes that this country and our allies use. By the time they're finished being downloaded it'll be time for dinner. Once dinner's done we'll start working on teaching you languages."

Ariel's hesitant nod was the only thing that betrayed her nervousness as she calmly walked over to the chair and sat down in it. I tapped in a few commands in the rune computer before I set it to work and said "I'll be here the whole time, so if it gets too much let me know and I'll stop the download. Like I said before this could take a while though so if you want to sleep during it then feel free to." Ariel nodded before her eyes closed as the information began flowing.

I watched the monitor that showed Ariel's brainwaves for the next five hours. As the information was for all intents and purposes copied and pasted I made sure that there were no irregularities. Thirty minutes in, Ariel's consciousness dimmed and she entered Stage 1 of sleep. An hour after that she was in Stage 3 where she would stay unless she began to wake up on her own. We had found that the REM cycle did some pretty weird things to the user when the person in the chair fell asleep during an information transfer and so we had tweaked the runes to prevent a person from entering it. Not many people appreciated seeing a bouncy castle every time they turned on a fan rune after all, that had taken forever to fix.

True to my prediction when the last of the data was downloaded it was time for dinner so we left the room and joined my parents and their advisors at the private dining room. As we ate the advisors took the chance to properly get to know Ariel in an informal setting. And by get to know I mean telling her embarrassing stories about my parents and I while requesting stories about her family in return. If it wasn't for the fact that me and my parents gave as good as we got and Ariel was finding the conversation rather enjoyable I'm pretty sure I would have done my best to melt into the floor.

Once dinner was over, the two of us returned to the matrix chair and I put three more tablets in the slots, these ones the ones holding three foreign languages that I called the Big Three: Spanish, French, and Russian. We had access to ten other languages currently but those were the ones that I felt along with English anyone in a diplomatic position should have. Out of all of our various ambassadors, only one of them had taken to learning all of the languages provided and he had been able to speak and read five of them before I had even started researching what runes would work for the chair.

Ariel's downloads went well into the night and into the grey predawn hours. I kept one eye on her brainwaves at all times even as I used my rune tablet to access the satellite grid and made sure that Ursula wasn't going all giant Kraken on us now that Ariel had her voice back since I was sure she knew her contract had been completed. I was half tempted to launch a rune guided kinetic bombardment round from orbit on her just to be done with the witch but not only did we NOT have such a weapon around in the interests of preventing an unneeded rune powered magic arms race, we had confirmation her den was right on top of a ley line and I did NOT want to see what would happen if you dropped a giant rod falling from orbit onto one of those things. Fortunately the satellite above her den had recorded no signs of her leaving ever since Ariel had visited her. Whether or not she could teleport was anyone's guess but even then the satellite grid would have picked up a surge of energy that was mirrored at another area so that was covered as well.

I was drawn out of my thoughts when the computer in front of me brought up a pop up window that stated all downloads were complete. I closed the window before I turned the computer off and put the download tablets back in their places before I walked over to the chair and gently shook Ariel awake. She gave out a soft groan as her eyes blinked a few times before she stretched out her arms and looked around. There was a brief period of confusion before she remembered where she was and said "I take it the transfers are done?"

I nodded as I offered her a hand which she took and as I pulled her up I said "Yep, if you want to learn anything else we can do so later but I thought you would like to see some of the countryside after breakfast. Would you like to take a carriage or learn how to ride a horse?"

Ariel cocked her head in thought before she said "I think I'd like to try riding a horse, it sounds quite exciting."

I gave a nod and said "Horse riding lessons it is then. I should probably warn you though that your legs will be a little sore after the first day. You have a moving body in between them so there's going to be some mild bruising until they get used to it."

Ariel gave a small frown but didn't ask to change to the carriage riding, which earned her another notch on my respect meter as we exited the room. I took her to the room assigned to her first where she could use the utility runes to bathe first, with the explicit order to wait for me to return from my own shower since a servant would be coming up to show her what would be the best clothes for learning how to ride a horse. I tapped out the message to summon said servant on my tablet before I left to my own quarters. Twenty minutes later I was back and waited at the door since I could hear voices speaking inside. When I heard the servant say that Ariel had the last article of clothing on I knocked and asked permission to enter. When Ariel called for me to enter I opened the door and blinked at the sight of Ariel wearing an outfit that would not have been out of place in a horse show. It seemed that the servant had decided Ariel would be fine learning how to ride normally instead of side saddle since I hadn't specified which in my message to her.

I gave the outfit she was wearing an appreciative once over and grinned as I said "Looking good there Princess Ariel." She blushed slightly at that and muttered what I assumed to be a thank you as I turned to the servant and said "You did a good job, madam." The servant gave a brief curtsy in thanks before she whispered something in Ariel's ear that caused her blush to deepen even as she nodded her head before the servant excused herself and left the room. Giving Ariel a cocked eyebrow look, I asked "Do I even want to know what she said that has you blushing like a school girl just asked to the school dance by her first crush?"

Ariel giggled at that even as she shook her head and got her blush under control. Gently pushing a strand of hair over her shoulder to join the rest, she said "So where do we go to learn how to ride horses Prince Eric?"

"We have stables on the side of the palace opposite of the cliff side where we keep ten horses and a couple of paddocks where the lessons will be held. But before we go there we should get some breakfast first." Ariel's stomach decided to show its approval of that plan at that moment causing her blush to return. I gave a chuckle at that and held out my arm as I said "Come on Princess let's get some food in that stomach of yours."

Ariel once more got her blush under control before she walked over and accepted the offered appendage. As I led her out of her room and towards the kitchens I said "So I was thinking we could spend an hour or two getting you comfortable with riding before we pack a lunch and ride up the coast to one of this country's light houses fifteen miles out."

"I think I would like that." Ariel said with a smile up at me and I gave her a responding grin.

The rest of the walk to the kitchens was spent in comfortable silence. After a quick breakfast we went to the stables where a bunch of voices could be heard debating the latest rumors and I groaned as I said "I never should have made pet collars for those guys, all they do nowadays is gossip with the people who take care of the stables." Ariel's confused look cleared up when we walked through the door and saw the stable hands chatting with the horses whose whinnies were covered up by voices coming from runed collars around their necks. Putting two fingers in my mouth, I gave a sharp whistle and everyone in the stable, animal and man alike snapped to attention, the stable hands giving a brief bow to me before most of them went back to the tasks they were doing before we came while the lead stable hand walked forward and said "Prince Eric, what a lovely surprise." The wizened old man gave my companion next to me a grin and said "And you must be the new ambassador everyone's talking about, Princess Ariel. If I may be so bold to ask Princess, is it true you were a mermaid before you came here?"

"Uh, yes." Ariel said slightly taken back at how bluntly the question had been asked before she found herself suddenly shaking his hand as he said "Oh it's so great to meet you. I once saw a mermaid in the ocean once you know, of course it was pretty far away and no one else believed me then so it's good to have confirmation I wasn't crazy back then. Oh but where are my manners? I'm Gerald Johnson, at your service ma'am."

Seeing Ariel floundering a little I chuckled and said "Come on Gerald, give her a little room to process."

Gerald released her hand and took a step back as he said "Of course, where are my manners?" Giving the clothes the two of us were wearing a shrewd look, Gerald said "Am I to assume that you are here to teach our new guest how to ride Your Highness?"

I nodded and said "You are. Has Aaron recovered enough for lessons?"

The stable master gave the calmest horse of the stable a critical look over and nodded as he said "He's recovered enough from the incident two weeks ago for lessons so long as you don't have him go all out."

As Gerald went over to talk with said horse, I turned to Ariel and said "Aaron took a nasty fall when a fox decided it would be funny to bolt through the stables for some reason. The damage wasn't too serious but he's been kept off duty until now."

Ariel nodded her understanding before her focus was brought back to Gerald as he approached with the aforementioned horse who calmly observed her before he gave a short horse bow to me and said "You require my services My Prince?"

"I do Aaron, our new ambassador is looking into learning how to ride. Once she was comfortable in a saddle we'll be going up to the closest light house."

The horse nodded and said "Very well, My Prince. If it pleases you, Paddock Two is currently free."

I nodded back and said "We'll meet you there then." Aaron gave another bow before he trotted over to where all of the riding equipment was where a stable hand immediately began to put a saddle on him. I gave Ariel a follow me gesture and led her out to the paddocks. Once we were at Paddock Two, we heard Aaron coming and watched as he came trotting over with the stable hand that had put his riding gear on. Once all of us were in the Paddock, Aaron began giving a detailed but still easy to follow lesson on all of the basics Ariel needed to know when it came to riding a horse.

Time Skip: Two Hours

The wind was blowing stronger than usual as our two horses ran alongside the cliff that the nearest lighthouse was perched on top of. Ariel rode her mount fairly well considering this was her first time, although I'm sure the collar allowing her to actually talk with the horse helped a good deal. As we got closer, I saw the lighthouse master come out of his house and wave towards us before heading to the base of the lighthouse, the elder moving much faster than you would think possible for an old man, and he didn't need any runes to do it either. Guess it's true what they say, healthy lifestyle, healthy living.

As we pulled up to the base of the lighthouse, I easily dismounted as I said "Master Tyle, how's everything going today?"

The man gave me a grin and said "Everything is going quite well Your Highness. The runes on the tower are all operating properly and there's no damage to the emergency lens." The man frowned and said "And how many times have I told you to just call me Tyle?"

I rolled my eyes and said "About as many times as I told you to just call me Eric I'd imagine." Getting a bark of laughter from the man, I turned to Ariel who had also dismounted by now and said "Ariel, this is Lighthouse Master Tyle. Tyle, this is Princess Ariel, our country's newest ambassadorial guest. This lighthouse was the first one we retrofitted with runes once our SEAL POGS stations were first brought online."

Tyle took over as he slipped into tour guide mode as he gestured at the building and said "This building has had a large number of upgrades thanks to the Prince's work in runes. The tower has been fortified to the point a tidal wave could hit the top of the tower and the building wouldn't budge an inch or loose a single brick. There is a localized teleport system in place removing the need to use the stairs to reach the top, with a rune powered elevator at the back for emergencies or for those who don't like the teleportation process. We have a new light source that is two times as bright as the old light which has its own dedicated solar collection rune system alongside the power link to the closest SEAL POGS station and a sound rune that is much more effective than the old fog horn. Finally, this light house has a direct real time link to the satellites overhead for meteorological and oceanographical purposes and a full set of communication runes to further help warn ships of trouble along the coast."

"Most impressive." Ariel said as she looked over the building that had several large runes wrapping around it.

Tyle grinned and said "So are you ready to see the view from the top Your Highness?"

Ariel nodded with a smile and Tyle led us inside the tower. We stepped on the teleportation rune at the center of the inside of the tower and a light flashed around us. When it disappeared, we were standing beside the lighthouse's original lens. Tyle led us outside of the glass cage and we came out on the tallest balcony. Ariel let out a small gasp as we came out into open air and she looked around her in awe.

Letting out a chuckle, I said "I bet you never thought you would be this high up before have you?"

Ariel shook her head with a megawatt smile. There was a flash of light overhead and her head jerked upwards with a gasp. I glanced up at the metal mount that held three rather large stone light rune tablets stacked on top of each other that were slowly turning and periodically flashing.

Tyle looked up at them as well before he glanced back at us and said "I'll leave you two alone for some privacy. Take as long up here as you want."

As the old man left with a chuckle, I stared at his back with a flat look before I turned to Ariel and said "Why does everyone assume we're already dating?"

Ariel let out a giggle at that although there was a minor blush present on her face as she did so. She placed her left hand on the railing while her right hand went up and pushed her hair behind her ear keeping it from blowing in her face. I leaned forward and put my elbows on the railing as I said "It really is quite a view, isn't it?"

Ariel nodded and said "There's not really anything that can compare in the ocean. There's a few cliffs underwater but everything below them is just darkness, not an easily visible sight like this."

We stared out over the balcony in silence for a few minutes before I glanced down when I felt Ariel leaning against me. I gave her a raised eyebrow and she smiled at me sheepishly as she said "This just feels like a lean against the person next to you moment."

Despite myself I let out a little chuckle even as I wrapped my arm around her and brought her closer as I said "Keep this up and everyone's going to start asking when the wedding is going to be held."

Ariel blushing again was my answer even as she burrowed a little further into my side. We stayed like that for maybe another hour before our stomachs started telling us to get some food in them. We headed back inside, this time going down the stairs so that way Ariel could get a feeling of how much effort it would take to maintain the light before the 'Great Rune Renaissance' as it was being called in some countries.

Lunch was a simple affair that Tyle joined in halfway through when he was walking past and Ariel started asking anything and everything about lighthouses under the sun. The old man happily planted himself on the blanket with a grin as he slipped into lecture mode and gave Ariel a rather detailed description of when the light house was built and about a dozen stories of the workers who had helped make it.

Tyle kept the two of us entertained for a good two hours before I frowned as my tablet beeped at me. Excusing myself, I walked a short distance away and pulled it out tapping a flashing icon as I did so. Seeing a video window pop up with the head guard of the palace, all contentment vanished from my face as I asked "What is it Captain?"

The man had a rather serious look on his face as he said "Your highness, you need to return to the palace immediately."

Scene Change: The Palace

I dismounted my horse while it was still slowing down, coming to a running stop in front of one of the guards who was waiting for us as I asked "What happened?!"

Ariel slid down from her own mount at a much more sedate manner allowing a servant to lead both horses to the stables as the guard made a follow me motion and began walking inside as he said "An hour ago, another woman appeared out of the ocean, this one fully clothed. She tried to gain access to your parents and you with some sort of mind manipulation spell."

"Considering I had everyone who spends any amount of time here equipped with mental defense runes I don't think that went over too well for her." I said with a grin.

"Indeed." The guard said with a smirk as he fingered the earring holding said small mental rune defense stone before he grew serious again and said "Naturally no one appreciated someone trying to mess with our minds so we tossed her down into the dungeons. It was as we were passing the security checkpoint's runes that you made for us that things took a turn for the weird though."

The guard reached a spot in the service hall and punched a code pattern on the seemingly empty wall and a door slid back and to the side revealing a well-lit spiral staircase. We walked down the stairs as he continued "When we passed the illusion concealment canceling runes, the woman turned into some half woman half octopus hybrid and tried to escape."

"Let me guess, the binding runes at the check point detected her intent and strung her up like a turkey roast." I said as we came out of the bottom. The guard nodded as we walked through a checkpoint, the guard stationed there waving us through and returning my rune tablet to me after we passed through the scanner. Once past the checkpoint the guard continued "Yes sir. Once she was secured, we hauled her into one of the max security cells and slapped a couple of magic nullification shackles on her tentacles for good measure."

We walked past the minimal security cells as the guard talked, the cells currently empty save for a guard doing a check on the runes inside with a downgraded rune tablet. We went down another spiral stair case that came out in a large chamber with four cells whose bars hummed with power. The one directly opposite the stairs had a shimmering field in front of the bars and as we walked towards it I saw my father glaring into the cell at its occupant with crossed arms.

We walked over to stand beside him and I gave the occupant inside a glare of my own. Ursula was inside, arms raised and shackled straight to the wall without any chains allowing movement, two chains securing her torso to the wall as well and ropes keeping her tentacles on the floor, lights glowing off the magic nullification shackles that connected the tentacles together.

Ursula gave me a look of contempt before she laid eyes on Ariel and a rather nasty sneer appeared on her face as she said "So, the little fish is still around. Tell me girl, did you just kiss the boy as soon as he saw you or did you actually wait an hour?"

My glare turned into an unamused look as I said "And what makes you think she had to do anything? This country has gotten quite good at using magic after all, breaking the spell on her in a way that allowed her to keep her new legs only took me ten seconds." True enough, even if I was implying we had used alternative methods rather than me just getting it over with once I explained things to her dad.

The slapped with a fish look on her face was rather satisfying as I continued "Personally, I think your spell work could use a little bit of work, because from what I've seen it's rather shoddy. Maybe you should go back to magic school."

"Shoddy?!" Ursula snarled at me as she struggled against her bindings and continued "Why don't you come in here and say that to my face you ignoramus brat!"

Ariel actually scoffed as she said "He has better skills than you do witch." Everyone else grinned as Ursula stared at Ariel like she had been slapped with a fish a second time as the former mermaid crossed her arms and continued "You were stuck making deals with individual persons while he uses magic that encompasses the whole world."

Ursula collected herself and sneered at the redhead as she said "Why you ungrateful little-" Whatever else she was going to call the girl was cut off as the guard tapped a rune by the bars and her voice cut off as a silencing rune activated. Giving the glaring witch an annoyed look, the guard said "I would appreciate it if you didn't insult a member of royalty in front of me again witch."

Ursula's mouth moved as she appeared to yell at us but no sound came forth sparing us of whatever insults she was trying to hurl at us. My father stepped closer to the bars and said "Get comfortable witch, you're going to be here for quite a long time." Stepping back, he looked at the guard and said "I don't want her to have any unnecessary contact with anybody." The guard nodded and the inside of the cell tuned orange as the guard slid a rune marker up a scale to a point labeled Super Max bringing the security of the cell up to its highest setting. We saw Ursula struggle with wide eyes before her body stiffened and she went still as she was put into a semi stasis where she could see and hear around her but not move. My father gave a single nod at the sight before he turned away and began walking to the stairs.

I watched him exit the max security portion of the dungeon before I turned to the guard and said "I know that it is a given but tell the others to keep those magic nullification runes on her at all times anyway. I don't want to take any chances."

"Yes sire." The guard said with a bow of his head before he led us out of the prison. As we climbed the stairs up to the regular cells I could feel Ursula glaring at me and my fellow royal but I refused to look back, Ariel following my lead as we left.

Time Skip: One Month Later

We were finally ready for the first recovery of one of the wrecks in Atlantis' territory, a ship that had sunk just before our ships were upgraded named the Wizened Traveler. The modified SEAL POGS stations had already been delivered along with a communications system that had allowed us to coordinate with Atlantis on how much man (And rune on our end) power was going to be used. And the three ships that I had designed specifically for the task were now complete thanks to round the clock work at the nearest shipyard. The three ships were actually smaller than most other ships height wise, only two levels from keel to top deck, with no masts relying only on runes for propulsion. They made up for that by being twice as long as most of the ships we would be salvaging with tons of scanning runes capable of providing extremely in-depth scans of the ocean running along the almost completely flat bottom along with a few other runic goodies.

Ariel was standing next to me on the lead ship as we made our way out to sea, the former mermaid fingering a leather band around her wrist that everyone on each of the ships had been given. The bands were a combination of three safety features. The first was that they acted as communications, allowing everyone to mentally communicate on three levels, team, ship, and emergency all broadcast. The mermaids were going to receive leather bands with this feature on it in order to help coordinate. The second feature was a combo of 'water to air' breathing aid and 'pressure reduction' system that would allow humans to swim on the bottom of the ocean floor without worrying about drowning or getting crushed like a grape underfoot by the ocean's immense pressure. The third and final feature was an emergency teleport set to teleport everyone with a leather band back home to a pressurized medical center. This feature was the absolute "Everything's gone wrong horror movie style, bug the hell out!" safety measure. If this triggered there was pretty much a giant kraken attacking while a new volcano was forming directly beneath the recovery site. Again, the mermaids and mermen who would be helping would have these on their bands but their destinations would be set for Atlantis for obvious reasons.

On Ariel's other wrist was another leather band, this one with only one feature, species shift. It allowed Ariel to shift between human and mermaid as the situation called for. She was Atlantis' ambassador to my country after all and some of said underwater kingdom's people might respond better to a fellow merperson than a human if tempers began to rise for whatever reason between the two groups.

There was a whistling sound and the ship's captain came on the PA system as he said "Now hear this, recovery site ten minutes out. All personnel begin final preparations and safety checks."

The ship became a beehive as those who were just waiting for the three ships to get close to the target destination sprang into action performing last minute checks on their equipment and making sure everyone around them had their bands. Ariel traced the two bands on her wrists before she glanced up into the air and whistled. A seagull circling above that had been following us ever since the three ships left port let out a scream before diving and landed on the nearby railing. Ariel smiled at the seagull who somehow returned it even with a beak before it turned its attention to me and studied me.

I merely gave Scully a raised eyebrow before I pulled my rune tablet out and pulled up the local area on the world map, studying the scans of the shipwreck we were about to recover along with oceanography data of the area. I was brought out of my study as the ship began slowing down, a quick glance showing the other two ships separating from the formation and moving in order to form a triangle around the coordinates, the ships' sides forming part of the lines rather than the bows forming the points. A quick set of taps had a radio link with the merman leader of our ally's group and I said "Kyle, we are currently positioning our ships, are your people in place?"

"We are in place Prince Eric, you may begin when ready." A calm voice said over the radio and I nodded before I put up the tablet as I turned to face the bridge and gave a thumb's up before dropping my hand with pointer finger out and spinning it by my waist in the universal gesture of telling crane operators to lower their loads. The captain nodded and began barking out orders. As the ships slid into their final positions, four mortars, one on each corner of the ship, fired sending rune stones out into the air which traveled a hundred feet before suddenly stopping in mid-air and dropped straight down. A moment later, four walls of shimmering clear energy sprung out of the ocean and rose five feet above the water's surface and the water level inside the barrier began to drop as the water at the bottom of the ocean was pumped out of a one-foot opening in each walls' bottom. As our ship dropped beneath the waves we could see two shadows in the distance also dropping showing that the other ships were following us to the bottom of the ocean.

Ten minutes later, our rapid descent slowed as the captain said "Twenty feet to ocean floor, everyone brace yourselves." Everyone on board broadened their stance, Ariel and me grabbing the railing on either side of Scully for extra stability, and a moment later the ship shuddered as it settled onto the ocean bottom. Scully quickly flared his wings to stay on board before he started looking all around the bottom of the ocean with a look of awe on his face causing me to smirk at him. A quick glance further down showed a foot of water gently lapping at the ship's sides and a look outside the barrier showed merpeople hovering right next to the wall, some of the more curious men and women sticking their hands in, some up to their shoulders, and waving the limbs around in the open air, and unsurprisingly, a certain yellow and blue fish who was waving at Ariel who returned the wave with a grin.

A moment later, the sailors with us snapped out of their own amazement and the ship was once more a hive of activity, large bay doors opening along the side of the ship facing the ship wreck, large ATV style loaders rolling out of the first level and down the small ramp onto the ocean floor and towards the barrier while the rigging for three lift elevators began being slid out of the second floor openings, their operators already standing on the shimmering energy fields even as the riggings extended medal rods to the ground for further stability. Up top sailors tossed lines down where sailors who had been on the first floor secured them to anchoring runes while others rolled ladders over the sides and other lifts for the top deck, one group of four extending their own elevator lift, this one much smaller and connected just below the bridge allowing quick access for the captain if he needed to leave the ship for any reason.

Ariel and I were one of the first people down from the top deck, quickly climbing down the nearest rope ladder and we sloshed our way through the water to the barrier's edge where the ATVs were waiting to go through. I hesitated for only a moment to take a breath to settle my nerves before I walked through the barrier and took an experimental breath. Grinning when I didn't feel water in my mouth or any uncomfortable pressure on my body, I turned around and gave a thumb's up. The rest of the crew let out cheers before they followed us through and I turned around to shake the hand of the merman waiting for me and said "Kyle, good to finally see you in person, thanks again for the help you and your people are providing."

Kyle, an older merman with blonde hair that held a few streaks of grey in it, blue eyes, and a brown tail, smiled as he shook my hand and said "You are quite welcome Prince Eric." Turning to Ariel, he bowed and said "Princess, welcome back to the ocean."

Ariel smiled as she hugged Flounder and said "Thank you, it is good to be back in the water." Her Species Change band flashed startling the poor fish before floating by my side was a green tailed mermaid, her clothes going from sailor attire to a navy blue short sleeved shirt that for obvious reasons hugged her torso but had loose short sleeves. Ariel stretched out her tail with a sigh of relief and said "It feels good to be back in this form again." Growing serious, she said "Now then, shall we get to work?"

"Indeed we shall Princess." Kyle said and he led us to the shipwreck where humans and merpeople from the other two groups were already surrounding the ship, the tailed workers showing the legged ones where they had deduced from earlier surveys the best places to safely cut into the shipwreck for disassembly were. Members of a much more solemn group had already began returning to the ships, Caskets of waterproofed wood being carried by honor guards as the remains of those lost at sea were brought to the ships to be returned home to their loved ones. I watched one group of sailors with one of said caskets pass us for a moment before I shook my head and quickly focused on the much less depressing view of the wreck and got my head into the metaphorical game to help out where needed. It was going to be a long day.

Time Skip: Early Night Time

The sun had long since set by the time our three ships returned to harbor. A solemn crowd awaited us, the family members of those who had sailed on the once great ship that had lost their lives waiting amongst the harbor workers. A now human again Ariel and I departed the ship and it wasn't long before I had family members thanking me for making it possible to give their loved ones a proper goodbye. It was an emotional hour as the bodies were unloaded first with full honor guard, and I sighed as I watched the tail end of the procession leave the harbor as I thought 'One ship down, hundreds more to go.' Fortunately, I wouldn't be required to help with the others. As amazing as it had been to help the recovery operation, the procession of lost sailors really put a damper on the feeling of adventure today had brought.

Time Skip: Three Months Later, Four Months Into Ariel's Stay

Ariel was once again by my side as I gave the rescue craft I had been working on for the last three days a considering look over. The prototype had the body of a Huey style helicopter but instead of propellers had propulsion rune stones housed in adjustable cowlings that were positioned on either side of the doors of the vehicle with another smaller two positioned at the tail for steering. I tapped a button on my tablet and the Helicopter flipped on its x-axis presenting the top to my view and showing the prototype to be a hologram as I frowned and said "The lightning absorption rune on the top is still messing with the navigation and communications cluster." Letting out a groan, I said "I knew I should have started with a bigger frame, but no, that would have meant more propulsion runes for the same amount of speed given."

Ariel put a hand on my shoulder and said "Hey, don't worry, you'll figure it out soon enough."

I took a deep breath and nodded as I said "Yeah, I'm just rather frustrated with this form of transport. The car runes weren't anywhere near as delicate as this when I worked on them a year ago, it's just that we need so much more to make this both work reliably and still be safe to use and it seems that no matter how big we make the frame there's never enough room for everything. We can't even minimize any of the runes since we're working with wood instead of stone on this one and if the wood gets rubbed away over time it could seriously mess them up." I frowned and continued "It's too bad we can't use a metal shell but that just means even more weight which means more propulsion runes needed since we don't know how to make aluminum yet and are stuck with steel for now."

Steam was just about ready to come out of my head from trying to figure out how to make this work when Ariel turned my head towards her and pulled me into a quick kiss. Pulling back, she smiled and said "Let's put this on hold for now and get some food. You can come back to this later when you clear your head a little. After all, there isn't a deadline for when this needs to be finished right?"

I wanted to argue for a moment but I sighed and tapped at my tablet causing the hologram to disappear. Putting the tablet in its case, I returned Ariel's kiss before I put an arm around her shoulders and began leading her out of the hologram room as I said "Food does sound good right now."

As we walked towards the kitchens I once more wondered how my life had gotten so strange. Here I was getting frustrated while trying to safely design this world's first rune powered aircraft with a mermaid princess turned human as my first girlfriend of three weeks. A princess who took her ambassadorial duties quite seriously and now knew how to speak and write all ten of the languages the Matrix chair could teach her and added a couple of underwater languages, etiquette, and culture data tabs to the information archives as well greatly increasing what this country knew about the inhabitants of the oceans of the world, both merpeople and animal alike.

I was brought out of my musings of my girlfriend diving right into her new role in life as we entered the kitchens and took one of the nearby tables as one of the servants made us a quick lunch. Idly playing with a fork taken from a nearby cup full of the things, I said "You know, I'm starting to wonder if going with propeller less Osprey style propulsion is what's making everything be so uncooperative on the design. Maybe if we went with a Quinjet style we would have better luck."

"That's the one with propellers in the wings and jet thrusters at the back, right?" Ariel asked for clarification and at my nod she hummed and said "It couldn't hurt to try, and when you were explaining all of the different air frames you knew about a week ago, you did say that it was used underwater once and flew through the air immediately after making it good for underwater rescue along with air and ground rescue."

"Yeah, problem is we'd have to add a pressure negation rune set in order for the water pressure to not snap the wood hull like a twig once it got more than a few stories underwater. Still, if we went with a Quinjet frame we'd definitely have more room to work with than if we stuck with the Huey body type like we have for the past few days." I said with a considering frown before nodding my thanks to the servant who brought our food over.

We ate in silence for a few minutes before I switched topics and said "How are the talks with the Spanish about that underwater gold mine ten miles off their north shore going?"

Ariel rolled her eyes in exasperation and said "Not as smoothly as I would like. They want to have the whole mine completely drained of all water within a month of opening which would be insane considering just how deep and wide the gold vein is and don't want any merpeople around while they work. Apparently, they believe we would steal what is 'rightfully' theirs." Ariel made air quotes at the end before she sighed and said "If they keep up with the holier than thou attitude I believe my father is going to ban any further talks with the Spanish for about a century."

"Well it would certainly serve them right. Honestly, all of this fixation for gold that ninety percent of the Spanish population has cannot be healthy." I said with a frown. The Spanish of this world were normally an alright sort, not great, not terrible, simply decent, making them good negotiation partners at any table with three or more countries sitting down to talk. You throw a bit of gold into the mix though and they suddenly became completely uncooperative. I was pretty sure that if part of the mine they wanted to create wouldn't be inside international waters they would have already had some of their rune crafters make them underwater mining vessels and take a crack at it without asking anyone for help with the subs. But since it was and the satellites overhead would catch them in the act, even if they tried tunneling through the ground all the way to get at it secretly, the Spanish were 'playing nice' as it were and going about things the diplomatic way, although it sounded like things would head south before anything could be properly worked out. Honestly, it sounded like that Gold Sickness the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain fell under once Smaug had been killed in the Hobbit series, which was rather terrifying to think about if almost an entire country's population HAD been cursed like that.

"At least the French are playing nice and only want five percent from the gold taken from under their waters." Ariel said as she speared a grape tomato in her salad and brought it up to her mouth. Chewing the vegetable once before swallowing, she continued "I'm just glad there's no gold veins in the Channel otherwise the English and French would be taking pot shots at each other for years before even agreeing to come to the table."

"Yeah, those two countries really don't like each other right now." I said with a frown. The two countries had barely agreed to having a tunnel made under the channel to allow non-water-based trade travel between the two and both ends had very heavily secured checkpoints in place. Really those two countries should have been on opposite sides of the world with how much they squabbled. It would have saved the rest of Europe a lot of headaches, not that Spain and Portugal were any better at times.

Ariel and I both shook our heads to clear our thoughts of pesky fellow European countries before our talk shifted to the much lighter topic of the no propulsion runes allowed sailor's competition that was going to be held in two weeks' time hosted by Italy, the grand prize of the race around the country's entire shore line a cash award that would make the winning team very well off for the next decade.

Time Skip: One Month Later, Five Months Into Ariel's Stay

I let out a cackle as a drone version of a quinjet no bigger than your average radio controlled eight propped TV show camera drone flew increasingly complex aerial maneuvers over the ocean. Ariel was watching with a content smile as I pushed the drone to its limits. Despite what some outsiders watching might think, and there was one visiting dignitary shaking his head at me in the extreme edges of my peripheral vision as he walked past who I was sure was wondering when I would start acting like an adult rather than a kid, these stunts weren't just me having the time of my life with a new toy. The drone was built exactly like the full sized quinjets we were planning on manufacturing and had accelerometers and other sensory runes in the hollow hull where the passengers would be on a full-sized model. And let me tell you, it had been tough making this thing, the six failed tries were proof enough of that.

"Let's see how high you can go." I said with a grin before I all but slammed the controller rune 'joysticks' back and the drone exited its barrel roll Immelmann turn and shot straight up into the air. The sensor readings being shown on a small glass plate connected to the remote began rapidly ticking off altimeter readings as the drone shot up into the atmosphere, a sonic nose cone forming in front of it as it punched through the sound barrier ten seconds into its climb. The alarm for the g sensor howled in protest as the quinjet drone's climb exerted over a hundred g's as I kicked in the 'afterburners' and the drone traveled so fast it would practically liquidize any human being's organs if they had been in the cockpit at the time overcoming the small inertia damper rune's ability to compensate, something I would clearly have to look into once the test was done. The quinjet blasted past the 42,500-foot altitude record for rotary aircraft without pause and less than a minute later it shot past the 367,487-foot record for rocket planes.

It was at that point that I metaphorically 'slammed on the brakes' in order to not lose the drone into the reaches of outer space. Oh sure, the drone could FLY in space, I remembered the quinjet's inability to fly in space from Agents of Shield's third season finale and had given it the same propulsion rune set as the satellite grid's rune tablets so the drone could theoretically reach even the moon if given enough time, but that didn't mean I should do a lap around the world on the first successful test of the drone though, especially when the controller didn't have quite the same reach as my, professionally speaking, absolute overkill of a universal remote rune tablet. Yeah, I could have switched to said tablet but then I would have to lock onto the drone and then sort through all of the runes on the quinjet drone to get to the flight controls and that would take too long.

Back to the drone though, I watched from its nose cam rune as it began spinning along its horizontal axis for five rotations putting even more strain on the g sensor before I pushed a rune on the controller and safety runes on the drone activated slowing the spin and putting the drone into a level hover. Nodding at that successful test of the safety protocol, I pointed the nose earthward and 'tagged' the cliff I was on as the landing coordinates and let the drone's self-guidance systems take over. The drone blasted its way back down to Earth, the still engaged safety protocol keeping it just below the inertial damper's compensating abilities and ten minutes later I was giving the drone a close inspection after it had touched down.

I could hear the small smirk in Ariel's voice as my girlfriend said "That last bit was a little over the top for a first test don't you think? I mean you only managed to make a working prototype a few hours ago and you're already trying to break it."

"Not trying to break it, trying to find how far a regular sized one can be stressed before becoming unsafe." I shot back without looking as I continued my scans.

"You say to-ma-to, I say toh-ma-to." Ariel said and I could hear her crossing her arms as she said "You don't seriously expect the pilots to have to climb that high that fast do you? I mean you had it going in a straight vertical climb from right above sea level to the very far reaches of the atmosphere in less than ten minutes."

Once again loving how intelligent this Universe's Ariel was compared to Disney's, I said "Hopefully they won't but I can think of a few scenarios where they might have to. Emergency rescue of a low orbital station being seriously damaged and dropping out of orbit or an alien invasion that appeared directly over our atmosphere due to hyper accurate faster than light jumps come to mind."

Ariel knelt and put a hand on my shoulder as she said "You know, sometimes the things in that head of yours scares me. Especially since I know a good portion of it isn't impossible, just improbable."

I put one of my own hands on hers and rubbed it with my thumb as I said "You and me both." Picking up the drone, I stood up and said "But for now, we should focus on improving the quinjet's design so that way we can be sure the pilots and passengers will be safe if we ever have to put such a strain on the craft again." Ariel nodded as she stood as well and we went back inside to the building by the palace that I had erected for my 'bigger' projects.

Time Skip: Two Months Later: Seven Months Into Ariel's Stay

A flight of three Quinjets shot low over the waters of the Pacific Ocean, rain pounding onto the windows of the cockpit as we flew. Our first global test of the aircraft was currently on hold as we traveled towards the distress beacon of a Japanese fisher that had somehow pissed off a local kaiju which had then tried to shred then sink their ship. Tried being the key word thanks to the water line safety runes keeping the ship afloat even with several holes punched in it below said line causing the lower decks to rapidly flood. The most seriously injured of the crew had already evacuated thanks to the onboard teleportation rune but the rest were stubbornly trying to fix the ship along with fighting off the sea beast they had angered.

As the Quinjets drew close enough to start seeing the kraken like kaiju, I once more cursed the fact that we couldn't teleport anything the size of an ocean worthy sea vessel or aircraft, not due to power restraints but due to the concussive force instantly misplacing the air where it would arrive _and_ leave would cause. Then I shook those thoughts out of my head and said over the communications rune "Quinjet Two, deploy rescue flares, target the area right in front of that thing's eyes, once its blind, you and Quinjet Three deploy rescue net runes around that ship and get it out of here, we'll keep it busy!"

"Belay that order!" Ariel called from behind me before the others could respond. I glanced back at her in surprise as she continued "Let me try to talk it down first."

"I'm sorry, but have you seen the size of that thing?!" I asked her incredulously.

"Which is why we should try the diplomatic approach first!" Ariel called over the howling wind as she opened the door on the left side of the quinjet allowing the howling wind and rain of the storm to enter.

"But to talk with that thing we'd have to be right next to it! If that thing decides to hit us we might not be able to get clear in time!" I argued.

"Then don't get close to it!" Ariel said before diving out of the plane.

"ARIEL!" I yelled as I ran to the doorway and looked down. A moment of frantic searching showed her in mermaid form rapidly swimming towards the massive cephalopod.

"Orders sir?" Our pilot asked, co-pilot glancing back at us in worry.

I gave a low groan when I saw Ariel get right up to the creature and began shouting towards it before I turned away to face the pilots and said "Have the Quinjets start an orbiting pattern, that ship isn't sinking any time soon so if Ariel can make it leave all the better for us getting it out of here easier."

"Yes sir." They said and the pilot transmitted my orders to the other two Quinjets.

Grimsby put a hand on my shoulder and said "Do not worry my Prince, Princess Ariel shall be fine, have faith in her abilities."

"I do have faith, Grimsby, but that doesn't mean I won't worry." I said with a flinch as we continued to watch.

It was a tense five minutes of watching my mermaid girlfriend talking with a Godzilla sized tentacle monster before I sighed as the Kaiju backed off a short for it hundred yards from the ship and Ariel waved for us to descend even as she made her way onto the fishing ship, turning back into a human on the way up. She immediately began speaking with the Japanese fishers as our quinjets came to hover around it.

As Quinjet One came in level with the deck of the fishing boat, I leapt the small distance across and nearly lost my balance on the deck that was slick from the still ongoing storm. Quickly recovering thanks to all of my time on other similarly wet ship decks, I made my way over to where Ariel was rapidly talking with the ship captain. As I drew closer I caught the words eggs, nets, and angry mother and thought 'Oh great, it's one of those situations.'

Thankfully, the captain apparently _wasn't_ trying to snatch Kaiju eggs to sell on the black market, that or he knew to act like he wasn't with us and an angry momma squid right there since he immediately barked orders to his remaining crew members. They quickly dove down into the flooded levels of the ship before coming up with five large pearl colored orbs that looked like giant pearls was all that they were. Given how the Kaiju suddenly twitched forward at the sight of them though, I could only assume that the eggs had very thick shells. The crew had to roll the eggs over the side, they were that heavy out of water, but as soon as the last one was overboard, the Kaiju sank down after them.

Giving a sigh of relief, I said in Japanese "Glad that's taken care of." Turning to the captain, I continued "We'll get your ship back to its home port, you and your crew can either travel with us in our Quinjets or teleport straight there."

"My crew shall teleport to home while I remain with you." The captain quickly decided and I nodded as I said "Very well."

Shortly after that, everyone was off the ship. The three Quinjets activated runes on their outside and strands of golden glowing energy shot out before forming a net around the damaged ship. Turbines whirled even louder as the wounded vessel was lifted out of the water. We waited until all of the water that had been inside had drained out before as one we rotated our formation until we were pointed towards the port town of Yokohama and our propulsion runes fired up and we began moving, slowly at first, but quickly reaching half our top speed.

It was a quiet three hours to reach the port, only the call ahead ensuring that the port authorities would have a temporary cradle ready for us broke it. As we reached the port, traffic control directed us over the north section of the port and several sailors stared as we passed over their boats. The port workers had managed to *get a proper cradle set up by the time we reached land and demonstrating the skill that had netted them the literally historic jobs of piloting this world's first aircraft, the pilots smoothly lowered the ship into it with barely a bump when it finally settled into it.

Our net runes deactivated and we pulled away until we could turn on our centers and land in a single line in front of the damaged fisher. The captain gave me both a bow of gratitude and a firm shake of my hand before he was the first one out of Quinjet One to check on his beloved vessel. Port authorities were waiting for us as the rest of us left our aircraft, and as we walked over to the three men I muttered in Italian to Ariel "Hope we don't have to pay docking fines."

Ariel giggled at that before she grew serious again as we reached them and I bowed as I said "I'm Prince Eric, leader of this group. Thank you for allowing us to land."

The seeming leader of the group, a man who had a no-nonsense air about him even if he could stand to a loose a few pounds returned the bow and said "We are honored to grant access for those who have saved one of our own. I am Tyrus Kyoga, if you need anything please do not hesitate to ask." He then cocked his head and said "Forgive me for prying, your highness, but why are you and your people still in these waters? You left Tokyo a week ago, and we assumed you would be well on your way to your next destination by now."

"Heard about that did you?" I asked in amusement.

Amusement that was matched by Kyoga as he said "It is not often that a member of royalty from another country comes with such fantastic transport. News of these 'Quinjets' has spread rather rapidly."

I let out a hum at that before gesturing to Ariel and said "Our Atlantean diplomat was having a meeting with her fellow underwater dwellers two days ago, we were just leaving when we got the distress call."

"Hm, I see. Moving on, you are of course welcome to spend the night before you continue your journey, though I must notify you that starting tomorrow you must pay a fee for your vehicles staying here." The dockworker said and I noticed Ariel doing her best to withhold a giggle at my prediction becoming semi true.

I gave a nod and said "Of course, though I don't think we'll be staying here that long. We'll probably only be here long enough to grab a quick cup of tea, a snack, maybe a restroom break, then continue on our way. We do have a schedule to keep after all."

"Of course, your highness. I hope you enjoy your stay here, no matter how brief it is." Kyoga said with a short bow that I mirrored before he left back to work, his two companions following.

"That went well." The pilot of Quinjet Two said in English.

"Indeed, though I think he was hoping for an invitation to look over our Quinjets." Copilot of Quinjet Three said.

I gave yet another hum before I said "Take an hour to get snacks and use the restroom then meet back here, we ARE on a schedule after all."

"Yes sir!" the three pilots and their copilots said, giving me a quick salute before looking for the closest mess hall, Ariel, Grimsby, and I following behind them. A bit of tea did sound good after all.

Time Skip: Two Months Later: Nine Months Into Ariel's Stay

It was official, my life was beyond surreal. Gazing out of the cockpit of Quinjet One, I could only let out a whistle of appreciation and said "Wow, that's quite a sight." Our pilot and copilot could only nod in agreement, not able to say anything. Something that Grimsby shared in common with them.

Ariel meanwhile was on a whole other level, staring out the viewport with the amazement one would give to witnessing the deity they worshipped manifest in front of them as she said softly "To think that I would someday travel so high above the ocean. That day at the lighthouse seems so far away now."

The sight that we were seeing was the Earth hanging below us. We were currently over the European side of the North Atlantic Ocean at a height of 70,000 feet above sea level, aka where only the venerable Dragon Lady U-2 spy plane had flown while still remaining in the very edges of Earth's atmosphere. The Flights of Fancy episode of MythBusters didn't even come _close_ to preparing me for that amazing sight we were seeing. The sight was as awe inspiring as it was impossible to truly describe with mere words.

Still, we weren't up here just to sight see. Shaking my head, I refocused and glanced out to where another object was hanging at the same height in front of us and spoke into the communications rune "Quinjet One to Quinjet Two, do you copy?"

There was silence for a brief moment before we heard "Quinjet Two here, reading you five by five sir."

I gave a satisfied nod and said "Quinjet Two, you are cleared for phase two."

"Quinjet Two copies." The pilot said before it waggled its wings and then began diving. This was the last test before we allowed the Quinjet to be mass produced. If the safety runes inside the vehicle could withstand a high speed high altitude dive then it could withstand an ascent of the same kind meaning it could be used for when we eventually got space stations up here, or maybe even a lunar base (Though I imagine it would be quite some time before THAT happened). Quinjet One was on top deck while Quinjet Three was at thirty-five thousand feet. Both of the Quinjets and the overhead satellite grid had their sensors on Quinjet Two monitoring it as it shot down fast enough to ignite the air around it like a meteor.

I have no problem admitting that I had my fingers crossed as we watched the fireball descend, the pilot steadily reading off the altitudes as it plummeted, the status of the safety systems called out in between. It was as the machine reached 15,000 feet that things got interesting. Quinjet Two suddenly did an abrupt barrel roll as the pilot shouted "Whoa!" and his copilot began cursing up a storm.

"What the hell was that?!" Q3's copilot asked.

"Damned pelican decided to come out of a cloud five hundred feet in front of us." Q2's pilot said with a bit of a laugh in his voice even as he continued diving.

Relieved laughter filled the comwaves and our Quinjet and as Ariel let out a sigh of relief I shook my head as I said "Hell of a way to test your reflexes."

"And here we thought there would be nothing of the bird variety in the way if we dived over the ocean." Grimsby mused.

"Shows what we know." Our copilot muttered to himself. Thankfully there were no more surprises for the rest of the test and Q2 pulled out of its dive when it reached 1,000 feet and began a circling pattern.

"All systems come up normal sir, even the bird sensor, the cold moisture of the cloud must have hidden the pelican from us since we're tracking it now." Q2's pilot said.

"We'll have to figure out a way to keep that from happening again, but otherwise this was a good test." I said. I was silent for a few moments as I thought before I shook my head and said "We'll kick some ideas around later, for now, everyone RTB."

"Yes sir." All three pilots and their copilots said and as one all three Quinjets pointed back towards home and began flying at cruise speed, Q1 and Q3 descending and Q2 ascending to three thousand feet during the journey to complete the journey in proper formation now that the tests were over for the day.

Time Skip: Two Weeks Later

We managed to fix the problem with birds hiding in clouds and thus our sensors. A mix of RADAR and Thermal Scanning type runes along with the 'Bird Identification' rune set solved that problem nicely. Honestly, I'm not sure why I didn't include those two runes in the set in the first place, but you know what they say about hindsight. Right now though, I was busy talking via teleconference with the United States Secretary of Agriculture about getting access to a couple dozen redwood trees for mass production of the Quinjets. They knew that those massive trees were on the west coast of the North American continent thanks to the satellite grid in orbit but hadn't _quite_ gotten to that area with their settlement efforts yet, even with access to rune powered vehicles. Which meant that while technically they were on US land, the procedure for a foreign nation procuring them was a bit fuzzy on the details given the lack of precedent.

It didn't help that those trees were too big to transport by teleport to a populated area either. We COULD teleport them, but they'd have to land somewhere pretty remote and the power drain for teleporting roughly thirty of such trees was likely to put a serious drain on local SEAL POGS batteries, the closest of which was still on the other side of the Rockies, attached to a station at what would later become Yellowstone National Park in fact. While there wasn't a sea component to the station, (the lake wasn't nearly rough enough) there was a LOT of geothermal energy potential to be tapped into.

Tapping my chin with a finger, I said "We could probably get another SEAL POGS station up on the western coast pretty easily, the problem is that it would be the ONLY structure there for a while."

The Secretary, one Norman J. Coleman nodded and said "Two years almost. We COULD get people over there to maintain it, but we're still settling in the area East of the Rocky Mountains, and we've got enough trouble with the Indians who don't like the fact that we 'white skins' are expanding so rapidly."

I winced and asked "They haven't taken a shot at the stations over there have they?"

Coleman shook his head and said "They like quite a few of the utility runes we've given them as part of our settlement treaties a little too much to do that, but the fact remains, tensions are remaining high out there. Best I can do for you is a temporary station and logging camp but getting all of that equipment over the mountains would still pose a problem."

"Especially since we can't trust remote teleportation with all that gear, one wrong landing and the material would break in half." I muttered to myself. I thought for a moment before I said "I could try to design a cargo version of the Quinjet that could carry everything over the mountains, though finding a good place to land anywhere near the Redwood forest would be tricky, and an aquatic landing has its own troubles with getting the materials to the coast."

"True, though aquatic landings do sound like our best bet." Coleman said with a thoughtful frown even as I saw him pull up a satellite image of the north western coast of the continent on his literal desk top rune computer. Studying it for a moment, he tapped a spot and said "This would be the best landing point."

He slid the image off his screen and as it slid onto the left side of the large glass screen that held the call I studied the location before I nodded and said "Fairly deep cove that an enlarged aircraft with aquatic landing capabilities could land in if vertical landing turns out to not be possible, relatively clear area around the cove tree wise so good for unloading supplies and making a minor SEAL POGS wind station and a cliff within ten miles to generate appropriate sized waves for the sea portion of the station." I nodded and said "This area should do, as soon as I've got a working design for the cargo plane I'll send it over."

"I'll be waiting Your Highness." Coleman said with a nod and I gave a nod of farewell of my own before I gave another nod to the technician working the communications relay and the image cut out. I gave a deep sigh and said under my breath to myself "Apparently making quinjets weren't enough, now I need to make C-130s, and aquatic ones at that."

"Sir?" The technician asked with a cock of her head.

I shook my head and said "Don't worry about it Miss Riverson, just musing how when one thing is done another pops up almost immediately after."

"I know how that feels sir." The technician said, her point brought about when there was a single knock on the door of the conference room we were in and one of the country's nobles strode in like he owned the place and said "I am here for my 2:00 call with…" He trailed off when he noticed me looking at him with a raised eyebrow and flustered a little as he said "Er, Your Highness, my apologies, I was just…"

"Coming in for a tele call," I glanced at the nearby clock before I glanced back and continued "Ten minutes early?"

"Well, you know what they say Your Highness, early is on time." The noble said giving what I'm sure he thought was an easy smile but still came off the tiniest bit nervous.

I let out a hum at that and said "Yes, they do say that, though I have yet to find out who these mysterious 'they' actually _are_. No matter, I hope your business goes well."

"Thank you, Your Highness." The noble said with a respectful bow of his head which I nodded to, gave Riverson a wave of farewell then made my way out of the communications room with purpose in my steps. I had a cargo plane to design.

Time Skip: Two Weeks Later, Ten Months Into Ariel's Stay

It took me thirteen days to get the planes designed. Yes, planes as in plural. The C130 was a good cargo plane, but it would take either multiple trips or multiple planes to get the materials needed for both a SEAL POGS station and a logging camp across the mountains, not to mention the men and women who would be going to run said Logger Camp. So I decided to give Coleman another option and went bigger, and not just to Globemaster either, I went the biggest I could remember, the Russian built Anotonov An-124 Ruslan.

The C130 Hercules lookalike that I came up with, final design officially called Type A Cargo Lifter, was roughly 98 feet long, wings were twenty feet wide each which had propulsion runes on every foot of their underside along with a few different rune types on their tops as well, a line of even more propulsion runes at strategic points on its bottom for VTOL purposes and enough weight negation runes in the cargo hold that it could easily fly with a full cargo hold like it was empty. Of course, all of this required a dedicated power system, so it had a large solar energy array along with a lightning absorption array along its spine and wings, and there was a propeller mounted on each wing and a smaller one on the nose for centrifugal force collection which would be generated by the passage of the plane through the air. In essence, as soon as the plane started actually moving at any respective speed then it could stay up in the air indefinitely. And unlike the Hercules from my old life, this one even had a small bathroom area near the pilot section, though it was only a toilet and sink combo, and opposite it was a small food and drink storage area. In short, while it wasn't quite as fast as a Quinjet, it was the perfect aircraft for making nonstop cargo runs across either the Continental US or across the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific wouldn't offer much challenge either.

The Type B Cargo Lifter was a whole other beast though. The only reason why the Russians had built the Ruslan's slightly bigger brother the Mryia was to haul a giant space shuttle on its back, thus making a central tail rudder useless and requiring a split tail. Since I didn't think we would be doing that anytime soon if ever thanks to SEAL POGS making that pointless, I stuck with the Ruslan's single tail design. The Type B was 220 feet long, more than double the Type A's length, had wings that were forty feet wide and swept back. Because of the change in wing design, I put two half sized propellers housed in cowlings under the wings. And finally, unlike the Type A which only had a cargo hatch at the back, this bad boy had the ability to open the nose section on a large hinge at the top and use a pair of propulsion runes to slowly lower the front end down to the ground at variable heights so that way longer things could be placed inside without worry of bending as they were loaded over the front's ramp.

I didn't expect the US would make more than one of the Type B Cargo Lifter if they decided to go with it over the Type A, but I thought that at least having that option warranted the extra six days it took to get the designs to Coleman. The fact that his eyes had widened a little and he had let out an impressed whistle when he saw said design was rather satisfying if nothing else.

Finally looking away from the plans, he gave me a small grin and said "Well I'll give you this Your Highness, you don't do things half way." He then turned serious as he said "Given everything that you've done with your work on runes, I'm allowed quite a bit of leeway with my dealings with you. But _this_?" He tapped the image of the Type B on his desk screen and shook his head as he said "I'm going to have to talk with the President about the possibility of us making this monster, and there's probably going to have to be some minor renegotiating of the deal for the Redwoods as well."

I nodded having expected that and said "Perfectly understandable Mr. Secretary, I just thought you'd appreciate having to make less trips or make less airplanes."

"And I certainly _do_ appreciate it Your Highness, but we're going to have get quite a bit of lumber for this one before we can even get to the bigger trees that this plane was made to get to. A rather vexing bit of irony, isn't it?" Coleman said with a twitch of his lips at the end.

"It certainly is at that." I said with my own twitch of lips.

Going back to serious, Coleman said "I'll get a meeting with the President as soon as possible. Depending on which design he approves, we'll modify our deal as required then begin immediate construction. With any luck, we should be flying out within the month. You are of course welcome to join us when that happens."

"I appreciate that Mr. Secretary, until then." I said with a nod of farewell, one which was returned before I nodded at Riverson who once more ended the communication. Giving a deep sigh, I said to myself "Glad that's finally done."

"Might I suggest getting yourself a hot bath and just soaking for an hour sire?" Riverson asked politely and I nodded at her and said "That sounds like an excellent idea Miss Riverson."

Thirty minutes later found me doing just that, head back and eyes closed as I rested in the heat rune heated pool that we kept in a building that was a five-minute walk from the main palace building. There was this world's equivalent of an Olympic sized pool in the building next door, just one more way that runes were making this world closer to my old one. Of course, the fact that I hadn't been the one to design either pools was extremely pleasing to me since it meant that others were becoming innovative with what used to be an obscure branch of magic. I wasn't thinking about that at the moment though. In fact, I was doing my best to not think about anything for the current hour, just letting my brain rest.

Still, brain resting or not, even with this being a public pool with several others already in it, when I felt someone slip in right next to me, I didn't need to open my eyes to know who it was and I almost unconsciously moved my arm so that it was around Ariel's shoulders. Said red head snuggled into my side as she said "It's good to see you relaxing Eric, these last few months you've been doing hardly anything but working on your planes."

I winced at that and said "Sorry if I've been neglecting you recently Ariel."

I felt Ariel shake her head and said "The Quinjet Project was important Eric, and we do need the Cargo planes if we're going to be able to mass produce them. Just promise me that as soon as we have the Redwoods for the workers that you're going to take a proper break from rune work."

"So long as no emergencies come up, I can probably promise that." I said.

Ariel sighed and said "I suppose that's the best that I can ask for."

There was silence for about ten minutes before Ariel said "I need to return to Atlantis tomorrow, I should be back the day after."

I opened my eyes and turned my head a little so that way I could look at her with a small frown and asked "Is there something wrong?" Due to Triton and my deal of Ariel staying here for at least a year as ambassador she hadn't actually been back to the underwater city in ten months, communication to and from her home kept to those that went through runes rather than in person. The only time she actually went mermaid in the local waters was during sunken ship recovery missions which for obvious reasons she had become the de facto 'person in charge' of, not that there were many of those left to do in our recognized waters. I think the last one was actually slated to take place in five days' time.

Ariel shook her head and said "Just some big wigs from other oceans and seas having their own get together conference. Daddy needs me there with the rest of my sisters for an opening orchestra performance."

I smiled and said "Well you do have the best voice in the palace." That was certainly something that had remained the same between this Ariel and Disney's, she had a singing voice that often put smiles on most of the palace staff when they heard her and even some of the more surly nobles were noticeably less _prickly_ during the few formal events we inevitably had to take part in the last ten months and she had been convinced to sing at.

Ariel blushed prettily and said "It's not that good."

She got a round of disagreement from everyone else in the pool who were _trying_ not to eavesdrop, not that I really cared since it wasn't like we had been talking about state secrets. That only had her blush more, though there was a small pleased smile on her lips even as she buried her head into my shoulder causing me to chuckle and kiss the top of her head. Still, the fact that she had felt that the Quinjet Project was so important to me that she had to wait until the day before she actually left to tell me about this had me frowning to myself and I mentally promised that I would make it up to her when she got back.

Time Skip: Three Days Later

Unsurprisingly, the Americans went with making two Type A Cargo Planes rather than a single Type B. The first one would be built by the end of the week and the Americans were going to test it for a day before building the second one after which they would make the cross-country trip. But thoughts of planes were firmly locked away in the back of my mind right now.

Instead, I focused on the path my horse was running down and the girl who was riding beside me. Ariel was actually riding Aaron, the horse who had taught her all those months back while I rode his brother, the two horses apparently taking this as meaning that they were supposed to be racing up to the coast and to a certain light house. All I can say is thank god for cushioning runes or our lunch would be mush right now. Though the fact that Ariel had a grin on her face ever since the two first started galloping meant that I refrained from scolding the two.

We reached the lighthouse just as Tyle was coming out. The old yet spry man waved at us with one hand while the other deposited a rag with a cleaning rune stitched into it into a bucket by the door. We rode up to the entrance and dismounted next to him as I said "Hey Master Tyle, it's been a while."

"That it has Your Highness, though given the rumors I've heard in town, you've been rather busy these past few months." Tyle said with a nod.

I let out a small wince and said "Yeah, but now that all of that work is done I can finally relax a bit. So I thought I would bring Ariel back here for the day."

Tyle smiled and said "Well if you need anything, I'll be in the house cleaning so don't hesitate to come get me."

After Ariel and I nodded our understanding, the old man walked away and we entered the light house. One teleport up to the top later, and we were once more at the railing looking over the ocean. I closed my eyes and gave a deep sigh before opening them again and said "No matter how many times I see it, this view never gets old."

Ariel hummed her agreement as she took her now familiar spot by my side with my arm around her shoulders, the younger and thus shorter woman fitting there quite well. We spent about thirty minutes up there before we went back to ground level and spread out the first part of our packed food. Eating the breakfast sandwiches next to each other while making conversation that stayed _away_ from anything that had to do with runes or diplomacy. Once our food was done, we spoke with Tyle for a bit then remounted our horses and continued our ride, this time turning inland.

We rode for just over an hour north, coming to a stop at a large hole in the ground, the only sign that something interesting may be inside being a runic lift elevator. Ariel gave me a look of confusion as Aaron and his brother tentatively stepped on the shimmering field of energy that had appeared once we got close enough, Aaron looking down to the rocky bottom over a hundred feet beneath and muttering a soft but heartfelt "That just ain't natural."

His brother gave an agreeing nod before the lift began descending, causing the horses to slightly jump at the transition from stationary to descent, though thankfully neither lost their balance. As we descended, Ariel eyed the old but still strong looking pair of ladders that were to the right of the lift and then looked up at where there was an equally old but firmly secured crane on the other side of said ladders. Glancing back at me, she cocked her head and asked "Is this a mine?"

I nodded but also waggled my right hand in the motion of 'a little bit yes, a little bit no' and said "It used to be, but it didn't have much in the way of usable iron ore, and so didn't last long as such. However, something much more interesting than iron was found near the back section of the mine." Ariel hummed in curiosity but thankfully didn't ask any further questions. When the lift smoothly settled on the ground, I leaned forward and said "Aaron, Jason, are you two coming with?"

"I'm good, I don't like the smell of the air in there, it's too stale." Aaron said and Jason nodded as he said "If it's all the same with you two, I'd rather be able to see the sky."

"Alright, but stay down here, we wouldn't want a predator to take a shot at you." I said before I dismounted, Ariel doing the same.

"Right, predator bad, cave floor good." Jason said even as the two trotted over to where a stubborn patch of grass and flowers had grown near a rain pool on the other side of the cave shaft.

Putting the horses out of my mind, I took Ariel's hand and lead her into the mine proper. For twenty minutes, we walked in silence, a strip of Light runes overhead keeping the darkness at bay and allowing us to avoid tripping. We went down two levels before we came to a bottleneck at the end of a chamber that was _just_ a little bit bigger than a standard doorway. Stopping there, I manipulated a Light rune control panel to dim the surrounding lights greatly before I turned to Ariel and said "Geologically speaking, what you are about to see is not worth any noticeable amount. However, aesthetically speaking, this will probably take your breath away."

Ariel's curiosity visibly grew and I smiled as I pulled out the runic equivalent of a hand held spotlight from my pocket and led her through the darkened bottleneck. Once we were through the bottleneck I turned on the rune and Ariel let out a sharp gasp as the powerful beam of light hit an outcropping of thin crystal and the light scattered in a prismatic display, the diffuse light beams hitting even more crystals in the twenty foot long chamber and further scattering, the room quickly lighting up in constantly shifting colors as the light beams continuously intersected with each other and thus further affecting what the crystal refracted. The famous Northern Lights didn't have anything on the light display going on in this relatively tiny chamber.

Grinning at the sight, I said "We're still not sure how, but there's literally something magic about these stones that has a mild effect on light which makes it behave slightly irregular producing this 'shifting' effect of the room. You could stay in here for an hour pointing your light at a single spot and it still wouldn't settle down."

"It's beautiful." Ariel said, her head on a swivel as she took in the constantly changing view. I let out a hum of agreement and put my free arm around her shoulders. She leaned into me as she continued watching and we simply stood there in companionable silence watching the light show, only leaving the cave when our stomachs reminded us we needed to eat lunch.

When we returned back to the palace, I walked Ariel to her bedroom and she smiled at me as she said "Thanks for the wonderful day Eric." She then leaned in and gave me a soft but lingering kiss that had both of our eyes closing. When she pulled back, her smile grew a little as she said "Good night Eric."

"Good night Ariel." I said with a smile of my own and watched as she turned and entered her room, waiting until the door closed and I heard her footsteps head further into the room before I turned and strode towards my own, humming a happy tune as I went.

Grimsby was waiting at my doorway and he smiled at my approach and said "So how was your outing My Prince?"

"I think it went rather well my friend." I said, still smiling as we entered my bedroom, the two of us making miscellaneous conversation for an hour, both about today and other things for an hour before I too went to bed.

Time Skip: Two Weeks Later: Eleven Months Into Ariel's Stay

The sound of propellers filled the air as a pair of Type A Cargo Planes flew over the last mountain of the Rocky Mountains. Ariel, Grimsby and I were sitting in cargo seats along with the rest of the crew of lumber workers. At the start of the journey conversation had been rather upbeat, but after a few hours, talk had died down and most of the workers were using the remaining time to get some last sleep in before we landed and got busy with setting up the local SEAL POGS station. Ariel had joined them, her head on my shoulder as she snoozed away. She had enjoyed looking out the windows periodically as the landscape changed during the journey but there are only so many mountains you can continuously see pass under you before they get slightly boring.

Grimsby and I looked up from the beam of lumber that we were using as a table holding the rune tablet that in turn had some last minute paperwork on it as the navigator walked over with a pair of coffee cups. Handing them to us, he said "We'll be landing in just under an hour sir."

I nodded as I accepted a coffee cup and took a long sip. Giving a sigh at the end, I lifted the cup up and said "My compliments to the coffee maker. Is that storm we picked up on satellite still avoiding the landing site?"

The navigator nodded and said "Yes sir, we'll be flying over it near the end, but its farthest part is over ten miles away from our destination."

"Good, the landing's going to be tricky enough without inclement weather making it worse." I said.

"It will at that sir. Let me know if you need anything." The navigator said before he went back forward, coming back a minute later with several coffee cups held in three cup carriers stacked on top of each other, dispersing them to the workers, most of which he nudged awake with his foot. After a quick conversation with the foreman he went back to his station and most of the workers began stretching, several standing in order to begin checking over their equipment and supplies, making sure that nothing would get loose as we flew over the upcoming storm. Grimsby and I watched them for a few minutes before we went back to our own work. Ariel meanwhile muttered a few words sleepily as she shifted on my shoulder but otherwise remained sleeping.

Time Skip: Fifty Five Minutes Later

A once more awake Ariel was tightening the straps of her harness as the pilot called over the intercom "Attention all personnel, we are beginning our final descent, please ensure all equipment is secured and your harnesses are fastened."

"We did that an hour ago!" One of the more boisterous workers called up the plane earning laughter from those around him and I gave a chuckle of my own as I stowed the tablet under my seat in the webbed pouch for now. Giving my own straps a downwards tug, I nodded to Ariel and said "Hold on Ariel, this is probably going to be a little bumpy."

"Hopefully not too much." Ariel said with a small smile. All of the passengers looked out the windows as the Type A began decelerating, slowing to a stop a minute later and hovering beside its fellow cargo plane. The pair made a slight adjustment in their positioning before they began descending five hundred feet straight down. As we reached ten feet above the water of the cove we were landing in I tensed up, bracing for any impact. The plane reached water level and cut off its propulsion runes causing the craft to sink into the water and bob up and down before settling down. More than a few of the workers let out a cheer as the plane began moving backwards, the pilots relying on camera runes at the back of the plane to ensure they didn't hit the shore of the cove too hard. There was the sound of scraping as we reached the shore before the pilot said "Alright ladies, welcome to the West Coast. Please wait until the cargo ramp is fully lowered before exiting the plane. We hope you enjoyed your flight and thank you for flying Air Cargo."

That last bit got some more chuckles even as the pilot began lowering the ramp. Harnesses were quickly unfastened and the workers began removing the straps holding the equipment as well as the pair of cargo transports that looked like miniature versions of the shuttle carrier NASA used to get the space shuttle to the launching pad back in my old world, only with ATV tires rather than treads.

As all of the equipment was brought ashore, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. A couple of the workers were also looking around more intently than the others and one said "We're being watched."

"You're being paranoid, there ain't a human signature other than us for miles." Another said with a scoff.

"Just because they're not human shaped doesn't mean they're not intelligent." I said, glancing around. A moment later, there were several flapping wings as a murder of crows came from the trees. Everyone stiffened up from the unexpected event, warily watching as the murder circled over our heads for a moment before they landed before us. And then to the surprise of everyone the crows were suddenly people.

The person in front smiled at me and said "This one is rather wise for his apparent age."

I blinked once before my palm met my face and I said "Right, the Chinookans are believed to be capable of shape shifting, I had forgotten about that." To be fair, I had learned that little tidbit back in my original world during a fifth year field trip to a Native American reserve, more specifically from a video that covered ALL of the tribes on this continent.

The same person's smile grew slightly and said "For one not of our lands, you seem fairly knowledgeable about us young one." Turning serious, he asked "May I ask why you have come here with the tools you have?"

Hesitating for a moment, I considered my words as I said "We require the wood of several trees to create more of our flying creations. The trees that grow here are big enough that we would not need to cut down as many, thus reducing the impact to the forest. We will of course plant new trees of the same type that we have cut to replace what we take."

My words had the group of Indians muttering to themselves, some looking quite angry, and as they spoke in a language I couldn't understand I idly mused on how their leader must have been using a bit of Chinookan magic to allow communication. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened after all, and not just with Native Americans doing the casting.

After a moment, the leader raised his hands and spoke to his people for a moment before he turned back towards me and said "You may do as planned, but know this, you shall be watched, and if you do not return what you take then you will be made to leave, and not by us but the guardians of this forest." With that, the people turned back to crows and took off back into the trees.

"Well that wasn't ominous at all." I muttered to myself.

"Indeed, but at least they are allowing us to proceed My Prince." Grimbsy said with a small smile.

"There is that at least." I said with a nod before I glance at the others and said "Alright guys, we've got permission from the locals. Let's get the SEAL POGS station set up then get to work."

There was a round of agreement from the workers and they quickly began getting to work in assembling the aquatic component of the station. Meanwhile, I glanced back into the woods and pondered if I should open up a dialogue of trade with the locals, and if they would even WANT anything we had to offer. After all, like the worker had said, there hadn't been any sign of human presence for miles around this point, it was entirely possible that they spent more time as woodland creatures than human.

From beside me, Ariel seemed to read my thoughts as she said "We can try to locate their settlement for further negotiations later, it is quite possible that being able to turn into birds means that they live much farther away than we would normally expect."

I hummed then nodded as I said "Yeah, you're probably right." Turning to where some of the workers were ensuring the Station's battery was secure on one of the cargo transports, we began moving with the group to where the battery would be housed even as I thought 'Still, if that guy meant what I thought by 'Apparent Age', how did he know that I was older than I should be?'

Time Skip: One Week Later

The two Type A Cargo planes had made multiple trips over the mountains to bring us everything we needed to survive out here. First of course was the temporary SEAL POGS station, this one without the subterranean component, then came a set of housing units, simple log cabin like barracks that were put together using tabs and slots rather than nails and pitch, with runes on the top for temperature control and to keep out the wind and rain, and finally the equipment we would need to actually be able to cut down the trees without it taking multiple days of work to fell a single tree.

The process was fairly simple in theory if not necessarily in practice. First, of course, was choosing a tree to actually cut. In order to limit that amount of trees taken down, we would go for the biggest ones, which were usually about 360 feet or taller. Course, just letting a tree that size topple over would have caused serious damage to the forest so we didn't.

Once a tree was chosen, weight reduction runes were attached to the tree. Then one of the two Type As would secure lines to the tree using a series of hooks place on its underside, four going down the sides, and one on each end for a total of ten contact points. Once the tree was secured, a chain of cutting rune stones calibrated to only cut wood was attached to the trunk as close to the ground as possible. Once in place, the runes would be triggered and within a minute the rune's would cut through the multiple feet thick tree trunk allowing the overhead Type A to easily lift the tree up over the canopy of the surrounding trees, taking it back to the coast where it would be delimbed then prepared for teleport back to Europe, more specifically a large field where no one was around to be hurt by the air pressure shockwave of so much wood arriving at point c from point a without going through route b.

We teleported each tree once it was ready rather than as a group. This kept the aforementioned teleport generated shockwaves as low as possible and allowed the workers who were on standby at a safe enough distance from the field plenty of time to come in and move the tree out of the field and to a lumber mill before the next tree came.

We were averaging about five trees a day with this system, which was MUCH better than if we were to use conventional lumberjack tools, even chainsaws wouldn't have been as quick. But even once the top part of the tree was removed from the area the workers weren't quite able to go look for another one just yet. There was still the stump and root system to deal with, along with planting a new tree to replace what we had taken. Fortunately, we had a plan for that as well.

It took a bit of tricky trial and error in a quarantined area and a team of three other runic engineers helping me but we had come up with a rune tablet that once placed on a tree stump would over the course of about a minute for a normal tree stump and roughly fifteen for the redwood stumps turn the wood of the stump and roots into a type of mulch that had plenty of nutrients for a seed or sapling of the same type to grow in. Give the new tree plenty of water and the team was free to move on.

Tomorrow would be the last day of operations for us here, the day after that we would be packing everything up, well, not _everything_ that we had brought with us over the week we had been here. Ariel had been correct in her estimate of where the locals' settlement had been, an easily reached by air fourteen miles away. We had borrowed one of the two Type As for a trip out in the morning, the cargo plane returning in the evening and Ariel, Grimbsy, and I had spent the day with the Chinookans. Most of the morning had been spent discussing how the Americans would eventually be reaching the west coast in their settlement endeavors.

The head liaison between the US government and the Native Americans that they had dealings with so far had been brought into the conversation thanks to my Rune Tablet's ability to tap into the runic communications system that pretty much every country in existence now used. True, it would still be quite a few years before the Americans settled that region but it was good for the two sides to talk about what exactly the expanding side could offer the local in exchange for settling down in the area and also what rules said settlers would have to follow. There would have to be more talks with representatives of the rest of the local tribes present but it was a good start.

The rest of that visit after lunch saw me and Ariel having fun with the younger members of the tribe, playing various games and answering questions the curious people asked us. Well, Ariel did the majority of the playing, I spent about an hour and a half talking with the village's chief and elders about getting them a small number of the wind turbines portion of the SEAL POGS and a collection of basic runes as thanks for allowing us to harvest the trees over the last week before joining her. The three turbines in question weren't large, their blades only about five feet tall, but once they were up and spinning on the top of the chief's lodgings and in the highest tree branches of the surrounding trees they would be more than enough to power the twenty heating runes and equal amount of lighting and water runes. The runes removed the risk of the tribe needing fires for heat and light while also giving them a clean source of water that they didn't need to go out into the woods to collect or rely on rain storms to fill water collection barrels.

Said turbines and runes had been teleported to the logging camp and were brought by the Type A when it came to pick us up. Being much smaller than the original station that we had brought with us, the materials were far less draining on the originating point's rune battery and merely added to the rest of the supplies sent to tide the logging team for the last few days we would be here.

Thanks to their size the turbines came to the village preassembled and it was only the work of fifteen minutes to secure them to the tree branches and the chief's roof then only a minute to have them send their power to the equally transportable runic battery. Another twenty minutes to explain the three types of runes to the tribe and how to _safely_ make more if any of the runes became damaged, it was time to head back to the logging camp.

When we arrived at the camp, Ariel and I went up to the cliff that held the much larger turbine of the temporary SEAL POGS station and I leaned against one of the legs with my arms around Ariel's waist, the pair of us looking out at the sun as it began to set, appearing to light the ocean on fire as it disappeared under the horizon. We stood there in content silence for a while before Ariel gave a soft sigh and said "It has been quite an eventful year so far. I have seen and done so many things that I would have never have even imagined." Tilting her head in order to kiss the underside of my jaw, Ariel smiled and said "Thank you for everything you've done for me Eric."

I gave her a smile and shifted her just enough to give her a proper kiss, pulling back and said "You are quite welcome Ariel, and thank you for all of the support you've given me as well."

The two of us traded another kiss as the sun finished sinking under the waves. It would be a couple of hours before we returned to the logging camp.

Time Skip: Twelve Months Into Ariel's Stay

It was three days before the anniversary of Ariel's transformation into a human. Ariel had confided to me and my parents that she would be remaining the ambassador between our kingdom and Atlantis for the foreseeable future, something that we had all believed would happen but were nevertheless grateful for a verbal confirmation of. Production of the Quinjets using the lumber we had acquired from the American Northwest coast was coming along as expected, though I was only aware of it peripherally, having taken my promise to Ariel about a break from rune work after securing the lumber seriously.

I had spent the week after our return home just spending time with Ariel, whether that be playing games with her, spending time in the library, going to the local towns for day trips, or even just walking on the beach. After that week we unfortunately both had duties to tend to but it was nothing as time demanding as the Quinjet project had been.

But at the moment, I wasn't with Ariel, who to my knowledge was reading Homer's The Odyssey in the palace Library. Instead, I was in the cove where I had first spotted her in person watching as her father strode out of the sea towards me. As he came closer, I gave a bow and said "King Triton, thank you for agreeing to come see me. I know that the proper protocol would have been for me to visit you at Atlantis but I'm afraid that if Ariel learned I had gone without her she would have asked questions that I would not have wanted to answer."

King Triton nodded and a calculating look entered his eyes as he answered "It is alright young Eric, it does me good to leave the palace every once in a while and you are a human I do not mind meeting." He then smirked the smallest bit as he said "You said in your message that what you wished to discuss with me must be done in person, and given your wish that my daughter is not aware of our meeting I believe that I know why you have asked to speak with me."

"Yes, I suppose that does make it a bit obvious doesn't it?" I mused to myself with a rueful grin before I turned serious and said "Your Highness, over the year that Ariel has spent here I have come to care for her greatly, that care turning into love. With your blessing sir, I wish to ask Ariel to marry me."

King Triton was silent as he stared at me for a couple of minutes with an intense focus. I did my best to stand still and meet his gaze without blinking. Finally at the end of those two minutes, the ruler of Atlantis gave a deep sigh before he said "If it were any other man, I would have denied him the instant he asked." He then gave a firm nod and said "However, you have done much for Atlantis, and even the rest of the world, and furthermore, Ariel's love for you shows clearly every time we talk to each other. It is a father's prerogative to believe that no one is worthy of their daughter, but in this case I must admit that you certainly are worthy. Very well, you have my blessing Prince Eric."

I let out a deep breath of relief before I nodded and said "Thank you, Your Highness."

"Do not make me regret this young man. Cause an international incident or not, if you break my daughter's heart, you will learn that this trident is not just for show." Triton warned, the trident gleaming menacingly for a moment.

I nodded again and said "I fully understand Your Highness, but don't worry, I do not intend to put my relationship with Ariel at risk. I don't think I could actually function properly anymore if she were to leave me."

The king hummed in what sounded like approval before he cocked and eyebrow and said "The wedding will of course be held at sea so that the people of Atlantis may bare witness."

I smirked and said "Of course, no disrespect meant sir, but I thought that went without saying."

Triton smirked as well and said "Just checking. Wedding details are often rather convoluted after all, it's easy for some details to be mixed up." Turning around and beginning to walk back to his domain, the King said "I shall await the call from my Daughter then, don't make me wait too long now."

"Yes sir." I said before I began making my way back up to the castle.

TIme Skip: Three Days Later

There was really only one place that I believed was the 'right' spot to ask Ariel to marry me. So, three days later, we were once more at the top of the lighthouse looking out over the ocean. In the left pocket of my pants was the small box holding the ring that I had commissioned for just this occasion. (Well, Grimsby had gotten it for me in order to keep Ariel unaware of its existence, but it was my idea for the design.) After about ten minutes, I moved a step away from my girlfriend's side and said "Ariel, I have a question to ask you about future plans."

"Okay?" Ariel asked, turning a confused look towards me as we now faced each other.

Smiling at her as I brought a hand up to cup her face, I said "Ariel, even though I knew you would eventually come into my life thanks to my knowledge of this world from my previous life, I never thought that we would be able to have the relationship we do now. I had been a loner in my previous life, content with remaining single even as all of my siblings found someone to start a family with. But now, after only a year of knowing you, I honestly cannot picture a future without you by my side. And so, I ask you this..."

Pulling the box out of my pocket, I opened it revealing a silver ring with a green gemstone that matched shade for shade with Ariel's tail set inside a fitting that had a couple of swirling waves circling the gem. Ariel gasped at the sight, her eyes widening as I took a knee and continued "Will you marry me?"

Even though there were tears beginning to form in her eyes, there was nothing but absolute joy in them and her smile as she nodded and pulled me up into a bone crushing hug and said softly "Yes."

And with that, as far as I was concerned, all was right with the world.

Time Skip: One Month Later

As much as I wouldn't have minded marrying Ariel the very next day in a church with just me, her, our parents, and the priest, the reality of our circumstances made that _EXTREMELY_ wishful thinking on my part. Unfortunately, the two of us were members of royalty, and that required a _royal_ wedding. Invitations had to be sent out not only to the nobles of our respective countries but also to the ruling class of the allies of said countries as well in order to avoid offending any of them. Of course, this meant that the wedding date had to be far enough into the future that said invited guests could clear their schedules to actually attend.

Given that the Bride was originally a member of an _aquatic_ race, the Flagship of the royal fleet needed to return home from its previous duties and be properly decked out for the wedding.

Ariel had to endure the headache of picking a proper wedding dress. (And more than once between asking her to marry me and us tying the knot I wondered if it would be the 'canon' wedding dress.) We both had to go through the torture known as Fittings so that way our choices of wedding attire actually fit us properly. (If my pants ripped while sitting down because they were too tight or my shirt buttons popped it would be an outright disaster, never mind if Ariel's dress tore from being ill fitting.)

And of course, what passed for this era's news reporting agencies got word of the engagement within days if not hours thanks to the servants of the palace becoming gossiping high schoolers the moment Ariel and I had come back from the lighthouse with the shiny new ring on her finger. We had to decide which groups would be allowed on board the ship in order to report what was for some reason being called the wedding of the century. I mean, I could understand year or even decade, it wasn't every day Royals got married, but _century_?

There were about a hundred other stuff that had to be dealt with before the happy day arrived. I'm just glad that the apparently mandatory bachelor party wasn't completely blown out of proportion, my male friends among the nobles merely taking me to a rather nice bar in Jolly Old England for a couple of hours where we played a few games of pool and darts. When I got back the next morning I learned that the paparazzi had scoured practically every town in the country trying to find said party and I cackled for a solid minute straight. Ariel reported that her own bachelorette party took place in one of the noble's manor in France to avoid the Paparazzi as well and was _much more_ dignified. Ariel had actually rolled her eyes when she said that the most outrageous part of the so called party was when one of the girls had pulled out a couple decks of cards and they all began playing Pinochle. Apparently, there was more than one card shark among the ladies that night.

But finally the day WAS here. An hour before sunrise, our Flagship, the Amphitrite, left port, followed by a massive armada of ships, both part of the royal fleet and civilian, some of the royal fleet temporarily modified to allow the merfolk of Atlantis to be at the appropriate level to watch, and each ship NOT the Amphitrite equipped with a rune system that would allow their passengers to witness the wedding as if they were on said flagship. Triton of course, was going to be on the Amphitrite, in his bipedal form, giving his daughter away as tradition dictated. I was honestly impressed with how willing he was to take on said form given the disdain for humans he had before Ariel came to the surface world.

But all thoughts about wedding preparations and Triton's newest set of legs weren't present in my mind right now. That was because I was currently standing at the alter alongside my father and the rest of my groomsmen, along with the priest doing my best to keep my heart from beating clear out of my chest and to just plain stop _fidgeting_ in a mixture of anticipation and nervousness. As I twitched my knees and elbows in sequence for the tenth time, the Priest chuckled and said "Relax Your Highness, while this is an important change in your life to be sure, it is one to look towards with joy rather than anxiety."

"With all due respect Father, I'd rather walk towards the change rather than wait for it to get here." I said with a sigh, twitching my limbs _again_.

"Ah, one of those who prefer being kept busy while waiting for something, with all that you've accomplished, I should have known." The Priest said with a nod of understanding.

Fortunately, I was spared from having to respond to that as the piano brought aboard this morning began playing the notes of the Wedding March. I allowed my joints one more flex before I locked my knees and interlocked my fingers in front of my waist. Meanwhile, everyone in the pews stood and turned to watch as Ariel was led down the aisle by her father.

Seeing her, I couldn't help my first thought of 'She looks so much more beautiful in that dress in Live Action than as a Cartoon.' The rest of my mind promptly dope slapped that part of it and my second thought was 'Alright Eric, this is a big day for her, don't screw it up.'

Finally, after what seemed like an hour but wasn't even more than a minute, Ariel reached the aisle and as she stood by me her smile seemed to somehow become five times bigger. I gave her a grin of my own as we clasped hands then the pair of us looked to the priest who had his own large smile on.

As all of the visitors sat back down in the pews, the old man put his hand on my shoulder and said "In the beginning, God made Man in his own image. However, unlike our Great Father, Man was never meant to be alone. When after naming every creature on our Father's Earth ended with Man still without one to call Companion, Our Father created Woman from Man, to always be by his side." Here he placed his hand on Ariel's shoulder before he brought his hands down our arms and onto our own clasped hands and continued "We have come here today in order to continue the tradition Adam and Eve started so long ago."

Hands still clasped over ours, the Priest turned towards me and asked "Eric, do you take this Woman as your Wife, to stay by her side through the good and the bad, through the calmest seas and through the stormiest of oceans, from now until your voyage ends in the final destination that is Death?"

I kept my gaze locked on Ariel's eyes even as I nodded firmly and said "I do."

The Priest nodded and turned his gaze to Ariel and asked "Ariel, do you take this Man as your Husband, to stay by his side through the good and the bad, through the clearest shallows and the murkiest depths, from now until your journey ends in the final destination that is Death?"

"I do." Ariel said, her eyes also not leaving mine as she answered.

As those two simple yet oh so important words left her mouth, Max walked over from the side, carefully holding a pillow in his mouth. On the pillow were a pair of rings, rings that were simple gold on the outside of them but with micro runes carved over the entirety of the inside of the rim with several features such as Never Damaged, Never Lost, Never Stolen, an Emphatic Bond between the wearers, an Emergency Teleport to the other person's destination, Species Shift for both of us, and a few other goodies. (Micro Runes were AWESOME with how little space they needed.)

Picking up each other's respective rings, Ariel and I kept our gazes locked as I first put Ariel's ring on her finger and then she put mine on. Once they were on, the Priest put his hands back on our shoulders and said "And with the rings placed, the pact is now set. Eric, you may now kiss the bride."

The pair of us didn't need any further invitation and we both leaned in to share a long fifteen second kiss. The crowds surrounding us all erupted into cheers and Max began barking rather happily. Honestly though? For those fifteen seconds, all of that was just background noise to me as I kissed the woman that I loved. When we finally pulled back, the Priest raised our clasped hands and said "Ladies and Gentlemen, Prince Eric and Princess Ariel, the Joining of Land and Sea, now Husband and Wife!"

That got an even bigger round of applause from the gathered crowds and we waved our free hands at everybody before we walked down the aisle.

What followed was easily hours of well-wishers from not only the Amphitrite but the other ships which came alongside the Amphitrite's port side then once all of those ships were done the ones on the starboard side came over as well.

Finally, there was one last group coming over. A group that I had noticed had been on the Amphitrite during the ceremony but had actually stayed back when all of the well-wishers had come to congratulate us. And even more interesting, I actually knew these four people from my previous life.

King Agdar and Queen Iduna of Arendelle with their Blood Daughter Anna and Adopted Daughter Elsa walked forward. Ariel and I gave nodding bows to the royal couple and I said "Your Highnesses, thank you for coming."

Queen Iduna smiled almost as wide as we had been during the ceremony and said "Oh believe me Prince Eric, we wouldn't have missed this for anything."

I blinked in confusion at the tone she had used before my attention was brought over to Elsa and Anna who approached. In Anna's hands was a wrapped package that was almost certainly a large book of some sorts going by its shape and size while in Elsa's hands was a plain looking envelope. Both of the princesses were smiling at me and Ariel fondly, which really confused the hell out of me given how I had never actually interacted much with this group over the last decade. Sure, when we were children they had attended one of my birthday parties, but I didn't think I had made THAT much of an impression on them.

Still smiling at me, Elsa handed me the letter she was carrying and said "Here Prince Eric, we were told long ago to hold onto this letter until this day, and to give it to you."

My eyes furrowed as I somehow became even more confused. Then I looked down at the letter and my eyes widened as I said "Holy Shit."

Ariel jerked at my language but I didn't notice. There, written plainly on the middle of the envelope was a pen name I had NEVER thought I'd see again: Tactition101.

END

Author's Notes: Was it mean of me to pull that ginormous cliff hanger just now? Yes, yes it was. Do I care? Not particularly.

36609 Words, 60 Pages. HOOOOOLLLLLYYY CRAP was this a long one shot to write!

SO, as you would know if you looked at my profile anytime over the last few years, you know that this is Part **1** of a trilogy. Next up is Part 2, Tales Through Time, and it is going to be a _**Beast**_ compared to this one. I will _try_ to work on it more often than I did on this one but no promises. Also, PLEASE don't badger me for update requests, this one WILL be taking a lot of time to get through. However, feel free to ask for progress reports on my Discord page, there will be a discussion channel for Tales Through Time there, invite to server is on my profile.

Speaking of future work on stories, the poll is in, with a rather decisive twenty one out of twenty eight votes I'll be going with the 'Write what you feel like' option of my stories. I have been asked to do my Transformer Prime stories first and I've decided to accept that request so look forward to those coming out along with possibly another Flesh to Metal story that I've been working on the side and may decide to add to the roster.

Anyways, that's all from me, until next time guys. This is Tactition101 signing out.


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